After 10 years’ work at FMRCo Fidelity Investments, “mutual fund” is quite a familiar concept to me, as are many other financial investment terms--stocks, bonds, derivatives, long and short, etc. However last month I found that I was completely baffled by many of the Chinese words for these when I attended a seminar on China’s Mutual Funds: Development and Opportunities; Hedge Funds, What They Do, and Opportunities in China.
The event was held in Boston’s Chinatown. We had a wonderful banquet with friends old and new before listening to a speech by Ms. Qi Zhang who is the Deputy Division Director of China Securities Regulatory Commission (a counterpart to the US’s SEC.) It was the first time that I’d listened to such a discussion in Mandarin by Chinese about the financial market and industry in China. I was completely fascinated by Ms. Zhang’s talk on the characteristics of the fund business in China--fast growth, strict supervision, professional investment, and moving towards the global market. She then explained the legal framework, product innovation, and future development opportunities. In discussing the development and growth of the Chinese mutual fund industry, she constantly made comparisons to Fidelity Investments.
The concept of the fund, including the mutual fund and the hedge fund, is relatively new in China, where the industry began only 13 years ago. Ms. Zhang joked that many Chinese, especially farmers, don’t really understand what a fund is but like it dearly because in Mandarin the word for Fund, jī jīn, sounds very similar to the words for Chicken Essence, jī jīng. I perfectly appreciate the point: Chicken Essence is good for one’s health, and the Fund is good for one’s financial health. Isn’t that a nice Chinese extension to Mr. Robert Pozen’s The Mutual Fund Business?
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