Chen Zhiwu, Finance Professor, Yale University——Opportunities Emerging from Decline of Commodities
Let me begin by offering congratulations to Chairman of CMIG and CMIG on this solid step and the organization of such a great Advisory Council. Chairman CMIG just mentioned that thanks to the establishment of the Council, Beijing witnessed an evident improvement in PM2.5 both yesterday and today. In fact, apart from this gift, another important gift is the plummeting prices of oil, copper and iron ore in the past two months. In addition to some assistance to the Chinese economy as mentioned by Mr. Zhang Guobao, the opportunities available to CMIG are really excellent because the opportunities of energy, iron ore and other resources in the world were not as favorable half a year ago as those in the past more than half a year after CMIG's founding. But please don't worry. When CMIG stands ready to do some great deeds, energy price has dropped dramatically. The opportunities remain out there for you. In particular, I got to know that some major state-owned energy or other resources enterprises might have a small space for maneuver in 2015 due to different reasons. At a time when the prices of oil, copper and iron ore stay at such a low level and those SOEs are busy with other endeavors, it will be a pity if no Chinese companies have seized on this opportunity. So CMIG, a private company as the foundation of private capital, enjoys flexibility, space and rapid decision-making mechanism in that I know Chairman of CMIG and President Li always act resolutely and vigorously. I think it is very interesting and meaningful that CMIG takes the opportunity to give play to the gift.
Moreover, I would like to talk about carbon emission reduction. Previously, the academic community, SOEs and private companies failed to pay too much attention to the environment and the impact of carbon emission. I think evidently CMIG is an investment company that ranks the first in the private sector in terms of scale and potential. It could launch investment integration in the energy sector, including heating supply, so as to truly realize the energy saving and emission reduction target of the 12th Five-Year Plan or the future 13th Five-Year Plan of the Chinese government through a sound incentive structure. This is because in the final analysis, if only SOEs participate in energy and other sectors, the competition will not be intensive, and without competition, there won't be many people trying to realize the goal of energy saving and emission reduction. So I'm very delighted to be a member of the Global Advisory Council, and see that CMIG will acquire and reorganize many industries under the leadership of Chairman of CMIG and these industries will be required to do better in energy saving and emission reduction under the real pressure of CMIG’s capital.