Foreign news: Bank bad debt rate near eight per cent in China, Bloomberg to head FSB's climate task
An alarming take on China's banks received an airing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, The Daily Telegraph reports. Bad debts in the Chinese banking system are four or five times higher than officially admitted. Harvard professor Ken Rogoff said China was the last big domino to fall as the global debt cycle unwinds. Rogoff said the official 1.5 per cent rate of non-performing loans held by banks in China was fictitious and the real rate was between six and eight per cent, the newspaper reports. Former mayor of New York and head of the Bloomberg publishing company, Michael Bloomberg, will chair the Financial Stability Board's new Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure. Other members include the managing officer of Bradesco, Denise Pavarina, the chief financial officer of Unilever, Graeme Pitkethly, the group head of strategy at AXA, Christian Thimann, and the special adviser to the Singapore Exchange, Yeo Lian Sim. The task force will consider the risks associated with climate change and effective corporate disclosures in this area.