SHANGHAI: Britain’s finance minister George Osborne called Tuesday for closer business ties with China as he visited its commercial hub of Shanghai, despite slowing growth and stock market volatility in the world’s second-largest economy.

Osborne visited the Shanghai stock exchange, which has seen its benchmark index plummet nearly 40 per cent since June as a bubble bursts, while worries over flagging Chinese growth have shaken world markets.

A day earlier Osborne agreed with top Chinese officials in Beijing to study the linking of trading on the London and Shanghai bourses, and the possibility of China’s central bank issuing short-term bonds denominated in the yuan currency in London.

“Whatever the headlines, regardless of the challenges, we shouldn’t be running away from China,” Osborne told business leaders and students packed onto the trading floor of the exchange.

“Let’s stick together to grow our economies,” he said, adding he deliberately chose to visit the Shanghai bourse, which he called the “epicentre of the volatility in financial markets”.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd , 2015

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