美林：China: An Inside Look at “Lending Freeze”  11月27日  PDF  16页

Lending freeze: Clear signal, small impact
China’s bank regulators have put their brakes on credit growth. The impact on
GDP growth will probably be small, but the signal is clear. China intends to tighten
macro policy enough to modestly slow the economy.
Not just moral suasion or “window guidance”
This time around, we believe it is not just moral suasion and we anticipate a
plunge in newly increased loan in the remainder of 2007. Actually, the
resoluteness and determination shown by the bank regulators in the enforcement
have not been seen since April 2004. However, the so-called “lending freeze” is
not to stop all new lending as banks can still have rooms to extend new loans.
Overall impact on real economy is limited
Although efforts to control lending have greatly intensified, we expect the impact
on GDP growth will be small because: (1) newly increased loans this year have
amounted to RMB3.5tn, big enough to keep the economy rolling; (2) the corporate
sector has raised RMB538bn from the booming stock markets this year; (3) profits
in the corporate sector are at a historical high; and (4) banks have leeway to
increase lending even without inflating their loan balance.