Wednesday, May 11, 2011

CIC Chairman: Support Greater Sovereign Wealth Fund Transparency, With Caveats

BEIJING (Dow Jones)--The chairman of Chinese sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. said Wednesday he supports greater transparency from sovereign wealth funds worldwide, with some caveats.

Lou Jiwei was speaking in Beijing at the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, a meeting hosted by the Chinese fund. A summary of his remarks was released by CIC.

"We support sovereign wealth funds striving to strengthen corporate governance and increase transparency. But it is necessary to recognize that, because of differences between sovereign funds' goals, methods, debt structure and regulatory environment, it is difficult to make horizontal comparisons of the level of transparency," he said.

"Besides, increasing transparency should not be allowed to harm legitimate commercial interests."

Lou said attitudes toward sovereign wealth funds are improving, although they still face prejudices and barriers to making investments.

"In fact, some regulatory policies not only hurt long-term investors like sovereign wealth funds, they also hurt the interests of those receiving investment," he said.

Source: http://online.wsj.com

No comments: