Given the failures to foresee the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent weak recovery, it is easy to think that economists have little to offer in the way of predictions. But when it comes to national-level GDP growth, past projections have largely been borne out; even when wrong, they can be used to diagnose structural problems.
The Chinese economy slowed further in the fourth quarter, matching its lowest recorded reading, last reached during the global financial crisis in 2009. The fourth quarter growth rate of 6.4 per cent, year on year, matched that of the first quarter of 2009, according to data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics. That was the lowest growth rate since the Chinese government began publishing quarterly growth rates at the beginning of 1992.
Read Here – South China Morning Post
Also Read: Trade war or peace, China is seeking economic stability not growth
Central bankers and investors are grappling with a $100 trillion question: why consumer price inflation remains so low in most parts of the world even as economic growth quickens. Compounding the riddle, question marks are now emerging over the one part of the global inflation picture that had been moving higher — producer prices.
As the rest of Eurasia slides further into crisis, the only thing getting in India’s way is India.
The only way China can hope to prevent the looming environmental disaster lurking behind its current economic difficulties is embracing deindustrialization and a much lower growth model than it has had until now. That’s bad news for the developed and developing world alike.
It’s one thing for Chinese President Xi Jinping to target the head of a national bureau – he has replaced many high-level officials since becoming president. It’s another for that bureau to be so filled with corruption and inaccuracy that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) has to admit it.
Here are some of China’s economic pain points: bloated state-owned companies; banks with rising bad loans and local governments drowning in debt; massive overcapacity in the property market; bad investment in the wrong places.
The liberalization of the one-child policy had been expected—and virtually inevitable. China, after all, is heading toward accelerated demographic decline. The country’s population is now projected to peak in 2028, well before the 2030–2035 timeframe expected just a half decade ago. In all probability, the top will be reached earlier, maybe in 2020.
China will continue to grow at a sustainable rate, and will not experience a hard landing, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in London. “China will not close the door it has opened. We are working to build a new system of an open economy and we will make renewed effort to make an open world economy”. In the next five years China is expected to import more than $10 trillion of goods, have more than $500 billion of overseas investment, and more than 500 million Chinese tourists will be expected to travel abroad, which presented enormous business opportunities, he said.
With China set to announce its third-quarter gross domestic product report on Monday, skepticism over its economic data is arising anew. Recall that Bill Gross has described China as “the mystery meat of emerging-market countries.” Premier Li Keqiang, before taking that post, said he didn’t rely on official statistics. He preferred things like rail freight and electricity use to gauge activity. So is China about to puff up its economic report card once more? Quite the contrary, according to one of the world’s foremost emerging market investors, Mark Mobius.
