HONG KONG- After China’s year of unprecedented crackdowns, roiling markets and halting deals, bankers and lawyers expect tighter scrutiny to continue in 2022 but say clearer rules will give investors some certainty about the regulatory environment.
Over the past year, Beijing has clamped down on antitrust violations, banned private tuition groups, reined in property developers’ debt binge, and made some offshore listings close to impossible.
Analysts expect those actions to extend into the new year with particular focus on data protection and deals that present national security risks while authorities also seek to step up control on private enterprise.
“Investors have been forced to consider a series of new regulatory risks over the last year, and those fears are not going to disappear any time soon,” said Logan Wright, director of China markets research at Rhodium Group.
“We’ve also seen some bureaucratic institutions successfully expanding their purviews in recent months, which broadens the range of potential regulatory concerns for investors next year,” he said.
China in November elevated the status of the antitrust unit of the State Administration for Market Regulation to the deputy-ministerial-level, a bureaucratic promotion that gives it more access to resources for probing deals.
