Jiang Jianqing, the chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), cuts out an hour of his time from a day-long conference in Beijing with representatives from ICBC branches across China to meet with The Banker. A key theme at the conference was addressing the local economy’s shift from an investment to a consumption-driven model – one which Mr Jiang deems essential if China wants to reverse the recent drop in its gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
The ICBC chairman is not worried about the drop in China's GDP growth to 7.7% since 2012. "China’s growth has decelerated compared to previous years, but if we look deeper we can see that maintaining the 9% to 10% annual GDP growth rate that was sustained for more than 30 years is not realistic for China,” says Mr Jiang.
