For more news and videos visit ☛ http://english.ntdtv.com<br />Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision<br />Add us on Facebook ☛ http://on.fb.me/s5KV2C<br /><br />And a look at China's stock markets. 2011 saw big drops—the worst performance since the global financial crisis in 2008. It comes as China's economic growth slows, and a series of accounting scandals has made some investors wary of putting their money into new Chinese companies.<br /><br />China's stock markets took a big hit over the past year.<br /><br />The Shanghai Composite Index dropped nearly 22 percent in 2011 compared to the previous year. The Shenzhen Composite index dropped 28 percent.<br /><br />China's state-run CCTV said on Saturday it was a result of tighter bank lending and weak consumer demand from the United States and Europe.<br /><br />There may be other factors too.<br /><br />Many Western companies have become more cautious about investing in China's stock markets. A series of accounting scandals last year raised red flags.<br /><br />In early December, Goldman Sachs told Bloomberg it plans to avoid China's IPO boom—because investing there has become too risky and unprofitable.<br /><br />And last week, French bank and financial services company Société Générale announced it would stay away from Chinese IPOs altogether. They say it's become too hard to assess their quality.<br /><br />The Financial Times reports that almost three quarters of IPOs in 2011 lost money on their first day of trading.<br /><br />Professor Frank Tian Xie from the University of South Carolina Aiken says part of the problem in China is unreliable data.<br /><br />[Frank Tian Xie, University of South Carolina Aiken]:<br />"In the US or in the West, regardless of the ruling government's policy, we must first have data that can accurately describe the economic situation. Not in China though... [In terms of] the inflation rate, people's incomes, tax revenue, and businesses profits—the data is not credible."
