Shuli Ren, Columnist

The Muscle That Backed China's Stimulus Is Quaking

The country’s $2 trillion development bank has been noticeably low-profile these days. It may not be in shape to help this next round of easing.

March 25, 2019 at 10:00 PM UTC

By Shuli Ren

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.

Nary a word about the policy banks.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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China’s most prominent development bank has been noticeably low-profile lately.

For the last decade, the 16 trillion yuan ($2.39 trillion) China Development Bank, and its less-muscular cousins Agricultural Development Bank of China Ltd. and Export-Import Bank of China, were on the forefront of every major stimulus push. In 2008, CDB financed the 4 trillion yuan spending pledge by the Ministry of Finance, its former controlling shareholder. The bank shifted its focus to the monetary side after 2015, disseminating 3.5 trillion yuan of helicopter money for the central bank via shantytown developments.