He Jun: Local Finance Reform should Avoid Dramatic Change
ANBOUND
The newly released Opinions on Key Tasks of Deepening Economic System Reform in 2014 is meant to regulate the government's debt financing, promote transparency while remove "blind passes" in order to establish a local government debt financial mechanism based on governmental bond as well as breakaway from the function as a financial platform. However there will be a huge impact on the local government’s financing reform and capacity once it is implemented. ANBOUND’s senior researcher He Jun warns that the central government should avoid dramatic reform towards the local financing and pursue “one-size-fit-all” policy. Reasons being, local economy still requires stable operation; regulating the local financing with a heavy hand will significantly reduce the quality of assets; there is a time difference between improving transparency and removing “blind passes”; local economy will encounter severe “money shortage”.