It used to be the case that if you ran a bank, everyone in China bowed to you. But, these days, that is no longer true. Demand for money is drying up in China.

For many years, Beijing controlled the supply of loans, doling out money to its favoured children – the state-owned enterprises – at subsidised rates while everyone else paid far more. Companies and individuals had a voracious appetite for money, and the market capitalisations of Chinese banks soared. But today, nobody wants to borrow much.

Fu Yuning, chairman of China Merchants Group – an empire that includes China Merchants Bank – says he began to see demand for loans dry up earlier this year. Every month, he expected that to change. It hasn’t. As a lender that serves Southern China and Hong Kong, his bank has been especially hard hit by the declining fortunes of exporters along the coast.