Recently I was looking at the mountain of stuffed toys that my two young children have and was comparing this to the lone, high-cost teddy bear I had when I was the same age in the 1960s. The mountain of stuffed, “made in China” toys of today probably, collectively, did not cost as much as that teddy of yore. Who will make the stuffed toys 40 years from now when the Chinese economy evolves into a higher wage economy than it is today?

China is finding it feet and the right political tone for dealing with Hong Kong as the region’s economic fortunes ascend.

Tim Clissold argues that the Chinese economy of a decade ago has been completely transformed and is now quite capable of rising to the challenge of excessive growth.

The excitement surrounding the opening up of China’s financial markets is considerable. Exchanges across the world have been fighting to set up alliances with potential local counterparts, and the banks that have long competed to establish themselves in a prominent position in the market have recently stepped up a gear, hiring and investing strongly in the country. However, there is still one area of potential growth that invites considerable scepticism from bankers and industry observers: the bond market.

Small city banks in China are becoming more popular with foreign investors wanting to establish a foothold in the country’s fast-growing retail banking market.

Chinese banks are aggressively disposing of their non-performing loans (NPLs), in preparation for their imminent listing in overseas stock markets. In recent months, the China Construction Bank (CCB), Bank of China and Bank of Communications have sold about Rmb323bn ($38.9bn) of bad loans to domestic and foreign investors.

New rules for trading in China’s derivatives market have provided a major attraction for foreign banks, which are preparing for the country to open up fully in 2007. Natasha de Teran reports.

Professor Thomas A Pugel explains China’s forthcoming crisis, advisinIn almost any current discussion with government officials and executives of export-oriented companies in almost any country (except the US), the “China locomotive” phenomenon – the positive effects of the expanding Chinese economy – comes up. China’s growth probably will slow somewhat in the next year or two. But that will be nothing compared with the crisis likely to hit in the next decade.g policymakers to focus on the next decade.

The latest high in China’s repeated boom-to-bust story has spurred the government into corrective action with a new austerity campaignwhile the central bank is continuing with reform of the banking sector. Louise do Rosario reports from Shanghai.

Bank of China (BoC), the largest of China’s big four state-owned banks, has announced that its non-performing loans ratio will be down to around 5% by the end of 2004 as it plans to bring in a strategic investor later this year in preparation for its IPO. This significant reform of the bank’s ownership structure reflects the Chinese authorities’ determination to reform the big four banks which account for 55% of China’s bank assets.