China can curb credit crunch: ADB official

Huge cash reserves provide nation with 'a lot of firepower' to keep potential financial crisis at bay

China has the policies and cash reserves needed to keep concerns about liquidity in its banking sector from turning into a financial crisis or threatening the world's second-biggest economy, a senior Asian Development Bank official has said.

"Let's not underestimate the government's capacity to address the challenges that they face. In all of the meetings that I've had with officials in China, in the Ministry of Finance and elsewhere, they are very well aware of the challenges that the economy faces in the long run," Stephen Groff, the ADB's vice-president for Southeast/East Asia and the Pacific, told an audience at Washington's National Press Club on Tuesday.