...China Cannot be Ignored: China remains at the forefront of investor's minds when they consider Asia-Pacific (APAC) developed-market (DM) banks. The operating environment outlook is stable for all APAC DMs except New Zealand and Macao, while Fitch Ratings' forecast is for China's real GDP growth to slow progressively to around 6.0% by 2017. This will act as a headwind for several trading partners and for growth in foreign banks' loans to China. In the unexpected event of a hard landing, the most affected markets are likely to be Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Other than Hong Kong (where banks have the greatest direct credit exposure to China), and to an extent Taiwan and Singapore, the effects are more likely to be secondary in nature ¡ including impacts in other markets to which DM banks are exposed. Australia Property, Japan Expansion, Korea Growth: Other investor questions vary from country to country. In Australia, the key focus, after China and commodities, was the banks' exposure to...
