【正文】 m expecting it to fluctuate within a small band. But behind house prices is a currency phenomenon with excess liquidity. To resolve the currency problem, you have to tighten liquidity by raising rates. But China is worried that if it raises rates, it will have a negative impact on the economic recovery and the government is trying to strike a balance between these two forces by making the best optimal choices. But I anticipate the rates will be slightly increased. This brings you to the topic of the appreciation of the renminbi, which is a major issue at this stage of the opening up and reform process in China. The choice we are now facing is whether to appreciate [the value of the renminbi against the dollar。t know] how broke into the industry? You have to know all of this, and you have to build this day in and day out.. All we can do is rely on daily life to build that, especially now with the Inter, which is an incredible opportunity. If I’m not away on business, I go home at 11:30 pm every day my house is very close to the office and I read. Then I get on for an hour and check out both the mainstream news and the gossip. If workers understand that you share a mon language with them, they feel you are close to them. You start to learn the Inter lingo [from bloggers and online events such as] Sister Furong and Yan Zhao Men. Also, when we travel on business and have meetings, there are a lot of opportunities to study. I am an adjunct professor at more than 20 universities in China and have lectured at Harvard, Cambridge and Columbia, which offered me opportunities to learn, prepare and interact with students there. Ma: China’s banking sector is flying high today and the contagion from the global financial crisis had a very limited effect on China. But you shouldn39。s banking sector has an extremely short one. Since the end of the planned economy until now, it hasn’t even been 30 years. As banking is a developing sector, the supply of talent has been a real challenge. One thing we have done to face the challenge is that we’ve looked abroad, mainly in Asia for highlevel management in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. This has been especially true for our credit card and private banking businesses. Mainland China doesn’t really have any experience with either of these businesses. The main reason I looked to Taiwanese managers is because they have already developed these businesses from the ground up, so they are able to do it here with fewer missteps. They’ve all received Western educations and have innovative mindsets. When Taiwan was under Japan’s control, a lot of Taiwanese panies got a lot of experience with Japan’s detailoriented management style. Furthermore, they understand China’s culture, so this makes it much easier to municate with them. Second, we run a “future managers”program five times a year to recruit students at top universities in China and abroad. We put them on the floor and behind bank counter so they understand how our business is done at the most basic level. Afterwards, depending on their specialization, they receive morefocused training. After about two years, they take on a real leadership position and bee a in the bank’s growth. Third, for our employees who have been with us longer, we provide continuous training through our CMB University. We make use of overseas schools, including Singapore’s Nanyang School of Business, Britain’s Cambridge University as well as domestic schools, such as those in Peking and Qinghua, to train our is tremendous petition for talent, and if you want to keep your best people, an optimal pensation system isn’t enough. You need to build your own culture. Our employees really believe in our culture and love the bank. They are also excellent at execution and this has been one of our greatest strengths. Employee turnover is fairly low, and that has been a point of pride. Competitors have tried to woo away some of our talents, because they are the best. But at a good pany, the loss of a few managers won’t bring down the whole business. Ma: A lot es from conversations, which are also a form of study. If you want to take a certain responsibility upon yourself, you have to study. You don’t bee the head of a bank because you are a bureaucrat but because what you know is a little bit more than the next guy, including young people. You got to know as much Inter language and gossip as you possibly can if you want to keep up with your younger employees. That’s a must. You have to know the trends in every sector, because we have every type of client. For example, in private banking in China, you must cultivate the wealthy as your clientele and to do so you need to know their tastes. Do you know what they’re wearing? What watches do they wear, what wine do they drink, what car do they drive, what type of art they enjoy, or literature and fine arts they fancy? Let39。s most charismatic business leaders since joining the thenfledgling Shenzhenbased bank in 1999, also discusses his leadership philosophy and what it takes to manage a pany such as CMB now one of the biggest players in its sector. Ma Weihua: Last year’s new loans were made under special circumstances. The country needed to escape the shadow of the financial crisis, so both fiscal and moary measures were necessary to move China out of the crisis and restore confidence. Given the speed at which the loans are made, China’s ability to collect information on them, estimate project risk and implement guarantees is not on the same level as that of America. Concerns about these loans are wellfounded, and people are being more aware of the risks involved. As for the RMB 10 trillion of loans, my view is that the loans related to government platforms, real estate and loans to redundant infrastructure and overcapacity have more risk. However,