Research On The Deepening Property Rights Reform Of State-owned Commercial Banks

The reform of state-owned commercial banks has always been a hot issue, and also a difficult issue in China's economic development. Though our banks have gone through several rounds of operational reforms, there were still many problems in the banking system, including large volume of NPLs, low capital adequacy ratio, low profitability, and inefficient management, etc. In light of the upcoming international competition, the state-owned commercial banks have started the property right reform at the end of 2003.The paper approaches this issue from the aspect of institutional change theory, focusing on examining the effects of the property rights reform so far and the critical issues in such circumstance at present, so as to provide constructive suggestions for the further reform. In the first two chapters, the property rights system for China's state-owned banks has been analyzed using"path-dependence"theory, and it is found through empirical study that the problems of those banks cannot be solved by only reforming operational systems while leaving the property rights unchanged; In the second part, the paper looks at the business and governance conditions of 3 listed state-owned banks after they went public. While the business indicators have been improved indeed, the corporate governance is still more of a structure rather than a real process, and the"insider control"and potential official intervention under the majority shareholding status of state is an on-going concern in particular; The last part analyzes some key issues in the future, both those haven't been solved by the reform and those may appear after the reform. Some principles and detailed policy suggestions have been provided for the next stage of the reform, including suggestions for government and for the banks themselves.In addition, the paper compares China's banking property right reform with some other transforming economies, such as Russia and some Eastern European countries, so that we can draw some learning from their past experiences.