Chapter 698 Meeting Yeltsin

Why did the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange compete so fiercely, even willing to lower their status to fight for status?

As far as the situation at that time was concerned, the dispute between the two exchanges was not simply a dispute over the GEM market on the surface. It can be said that the motivation behind it was to seize the dominance of the financial center in mainland China.

Since Hong Kong's status as an international financial center cannot be shaken by anyone at present, the competitors for the financial center in the mainland include Beijing, Tianjin, and even Chongqing, Shenyang, Wuhan, etc. Shanghai has a deep accumulation of commercial finance and has been an international metropolis since modern times. The Bund in Shanghai was full of international financial institutions at that time, and only Tianjin could rival it.

Therefore, the real opponents of the two major exchanges are actually the two local governments of Shenzhen and Shanghai.

This year, the concept of venture capital has become popular all over the world, the Nasdaq market has soared wildly, and the Hong Kong GEM is also in preparation. Shanghai and Shenzhen competed to present their own advantages to the State Council and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and competed for the establishment of the "GEM market" in the mainland. Seminars were overwhelming, and experts and scholars ran around to promote venture capital, lobby the central government, and prove their qualifications to set up a "second board market". At that time, the candidate cities were already Beijing and Wuhan, and Shenzhen had not yet won the competition by chance.

After the simple processing industry moved north to Dongguan and Huizhou, the financial industry and high-tech industry have become an indispensable pillar of Shenzhen. The financial output value accounts for about 15% of Shenzhen's GDP, and the profit is almost a quarter of the country. The support for other industries cannot be underestimated, and the profit of Shanghai's financial industry accounts for more than a quarter of the country. At that time, it was rumored that Shenzhen's main board market would be merged into Shanghai. For Shenzhen, this not only means a huge amount of capital flowing north, but also puts its status as a regional financial center that has just gained a foothold in jeopardy.

Because there have always been rumors of the cancellation of even the main board market, Shenzhen government officials have been petitioning and mediating in Beijing, trying to turn the tide and temporarily put the suspense of the cancellation of Shenzhen's main board market to rest.

The competition and constraints between Shenzhen and Shanghai are of course not just a face-saving dispute, but a dispute for financial discourse power. Shenzhen has neither a traditional industrial base nor a considerable lack of resources. It is reasonable to want to use the financial industry and high-tech industry to restore the economic achievements of the past when the central government's policies were tilted. The Shenzhen Municipal Government has learned a lesson from the ten-year-long open and covert struggle with Shanghai, which is plotting to become an international financial center.

The mainland capital market structure, which is created by administrative intervention rather than free market competition, is often easily subject to the will of the government. This can be regarded as a bureaucratic economy with Chinese characteristics.

However, Fan Wubing is very clear that the suspension of new shares on the main board has dealt a heavy blow to Shenzhen. The interest income from the frozen funds for new share subscriptions has suddenly evaporated, the financing function of the primary market has been lost, the market trading volume is half dead or even decreasing, and the funds in the secondary market have gradually been lost. The main indicators of the total market value, circulating market value, and number of listed companies in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange have all shown negative growth.

Although Shenzhen will still be a financial center in the future,

it is obvious that it has stagnated. The GEM is well prepared but has been difficult to launch, which has caused the local fund industry to move north to Shanghai to seek new development.

Although the 5.19 market this time came relatively suddenly, it is definitely not without reason.

The market situation of the domestic stock market in the first half of this year was not optimistic. The stock market fell by a quarter in less than a year. To paraphrase the official words, first, less funds were raised, which was not conducive to raising funds to support economic construction. Second, the continued downturn in the market led to difficulties in the listing of new shares, which was not conducive to the function of the capital market, supporting the reform of state-owned enterprises, and establishing a modern enterprise system. Third, investors were generally trapped and suffered serious losses, which was not conducive to improving people's living standards and protecting the interests of the masses, and at the same time affected investor confidence.

Based on the above, the China Securities Regulatory Commission submitted a "Request for Instructions on Several Policies to Further Standardize and Promote the Development of the Securities Market". After the report was submitted, the State Council formally approved it on May 12 after repeated consultations with the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, the Reform Commission and other departments.

Then, the embassy was bombed the next day. The missile incident directly led to a heavy drop in the two markets. Under this circumstance, the two markets had actually fallen to the bottom. Just yesterday, after the United States publicly apologized and the two sides reached a preliminary understanding, the investors who had been in a state of panic finally ushered in a good day of pride.

In other words, this was also a means for the management to divert everyone's attention. At least most people's attention was immediately diverted to the hot stock market, and the attention rate of the embassy bombing suddenly dropped by dozens of percentage points.

Well, speaking of this, Chinese people are really more realistic. Nothing is more important than making money! Fan Wubing thought of this and shook his head, thinking that patriotism also has its limitations.

Fan Wubing called home and asked his father about it. He was told that Yeltsin was still in China, so he caught the afternoon flight and flew directly back to Beijing.

It takes about 13 or 14 hours to fly directly from New York to Beijing. The time difference between the two places is 13 hours. Therefore, Fan Wubing left the United States at 2 pm. When he arrived home, it was already more than 4 pm here. He took a short nap and got up at 7 o'clock to read his own novel column on Huafeng.com, which he had not had time to read for several days. He found that it was already crowded at this time. Everyone was looking forward to today's update.

There are still manuscripts, but they have been given to the editors of Huafeng.com to help them update. Fan Wubing is considering getting all the manuscripts out within a month, which can be regarded as putting an end to this worry. After all, being chased by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of readers for updates is both a happy and a headache.

After a while, Fan Heng came home.

Since he became a member of the Standing Committee, although he is also quite busy, as the executive vice premier, Fan Heng has done more specific affairs, but not many state affairs. Except for some very necessary activities, he does not participate in them. This also satisfies the wishes of some people who do not want him to show up too much.

Seeing that his son has returned, Fan Heng couldn't help but ask curiously, "Are you going to meet with Yeltsin?"

"I am considering some investment projects in Russia, so meeting Yeltsin is a better choice." Fan Wubing nodded and replied.

In fact, Russia has not had a good life since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The dark clouds of industrial and economic crises have never dissipated. Although Yeltsin's shock therapy has been implemented in recent years, and there has been a new atmosphere, the national economy is still very bad overall.

This year can be said to be a turning point for Russia to get rid of the economic crisis and start economic recovery. If Russia can maintain the current positive momentum, the economy is expected to bottom out this year and even show a slight growth.

For a long time, the interference of political struggles has been one of the important factors leading to the Russian economic crisis. Last year was a year of unusual changes in the Russian political arena. The outbreak of the financial crisis made the social situation increasingly tense. The economic policies of stability and adjustment adopted by the Primakov government after taking office, striving to stabilize the political situation, strengthen the government's regulation of the market and intervention in the economy, stabilize the monetary system and the ruble exchange rate, and ensure social stability, have given the Russian economy a glimmer of hope and re-established people's confidence in the Russian government. Although Russia has changed two prime ministers in succession after Primakov, each government has adhered to the basic program of stabilizing finance and restoring production, which has created good conditions for Russia to alleviate the impact of the financial crisis and restore domestic production.

The re-arrangement and debt restructuring of Russia's debt by international financial organizations have significantly reduced Russia's debt repayment pressure, creating conditions for easing the crisis and then recovering. Today, Russia's total domestic and foreign debts exceed 220 billion US dollars, while its gold and foreign exchange reserves at the beginning of this year totaled only 12 billion US dollars.

In view of this, the Russian government had to negotiate with Western countries to postpone the repayment or reduction of foreign debts. At the same time, drawing on the experience of international bank debt restructuring, in the past year or so, Russia has restructured the national bonds and huge foreign debts frozen after the crisis, thus avoiding the crisis of losing repayment ability.

The sharp depreciation of the ruble exchange rate in Russia is conducive to improving the competitiveness of its export products, and the rise in energy prices in the international market this year is also very beneficial to Russia. Oil exports alone can bring Russia about 20 billion US dollars in foreign exchange income. Other prices such as natural gas, copper, and aluminum are also rising, which can increase Russia's foreign exchange income.

Yeltsin came here mainly to strengthen ties with China and fight against the economic and political pressure from the United States and the European Union. At the same time, because of physical reasons, he wanted to pave the way for his successor Putin. Fan Wubing took this opportunity to meet him, in fact, he hoped to meet these two important Russian politicians in order to enter the Russian market as soon as possible.

Although there are always problems of one kind or another in Russia, no one can deny that no country will always be in bad luck, and Russia is the same. Fan Wubing has a very persistent pursuit of oil, natural gas and mineral resources. If he can get access permission at this time, it would be the best.

In fact, Fan Wubing's request to meet Yeltsin also met Yeltsin's own needs. He just needed to introduce a large amount of foreign capital. Fan Wubing's appearance at this time made him feel that it was a good opportunity.

So early the next morning, Yeltsin took the opportunity of meeting Chinese doctors for a collective consultation with him and had a secret contact with Fan Wubing. The role played by Fan Wubing at this time was nothing more than a miracle doctor.

Of course, the topic the two talked about was not very related to the illness.