GEG Director Professor Ngaire Woods comments on Chinese market falls for BBC Today programme

GEG Director Professor Ngaire Woods was interviewed for the BBC Today programme on 25 August about the falls in the Chinese stock market and the significance for the global economy.

Speaking with Today presenter Justin Webb, Professor Woods said that the Chinese government has bolstered its political support over the past few years by pumping significant amounts of money into the economy to keep growth going, but that, “it has learned rapidly over the last weeks that it can’t control and contain the market forces that it has unleashed to its benefit during the upswing”.

Turning to the wider concerns of the Chinese people, she said: “China's population is not just worried about the market going up and down, its worried about the things that the markets can’t fix: contaminated food, air and water pollution, and corruption. The government will have to start delivering on those things, and if anything the economic downturn will focus people yet more in China on what the government isn’t doing.”

The interview can be heard in full at the Today Programme website at 2.14.20.