China's secret lists of 'zombie' borrowers leave banks in the dark

Washington

THERE'S a list that Ni Baixiang, head of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd's (ICBC) Jiangxi branch, would love to get his hands on.

Commonly referred to as the "zombie list", it's compiled by Jiangxi regional authorities and holds the names of the most deadbeat of borrowers: state- owned companies deemed too weak to survive and destined to be wound down. In short, the kind of enterprises banks already weighed down by rising bad loans want to steer well clear of.

Only, neither Mr Ni nor his competitors in Jiangxi are allowed to know who they are. "They won't tell us because if we know, we'll lose confidence," Mr Ni, whose bank is China's largest, told reporters after a press briefing in Beijing ea…