Showing 1 - 10 of 17
Bad jobs data could end up biting China
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 21/02/2019
» China has long been criticised both for its obsession with GDP statistics and their quality: Pressuring cadres to meet growth targets has encouraged a risky buildup of debt and, at times, outright fabrication of numbers. If anything, though, the quality of China's official employment data is even worse -- and the inaccuracies could have equally dangerous repercussions.
China to choose between debt growth or development
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 18/12/2018
» China's top leaders meet this week in Beijing to set economic policy objectives for the coming year. The central question is whether they will do what they want or what the country needs.
China needs to resolve its underlying data discrepancy
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 24/09/2018
» China's economic data, never easy to track in the best of times, has become almost indecipherable in 2018. While the headline numbers on GDP growth, retail sales and debt tell reassuring stories that (unsurprisingly) match government objectives, the underlying statistics paint a very different picture. What does this tell us about the state of the economy?
Chinese savers won't save China
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 09/07/2018
» Chinese are, in the popular imagination as well as some economic statistics, inveterate savers. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Chinese savings rate stood at an astonishing 46% in 2016, compared to a global average around 25%. Chinese planners have long sought to bring that ratio down in order to promote consumption and ease the economy's overreliance on investment. If only Chinese would shop more, the thinking goes, China wouldn't need to rely on smokestack factories and boondoggle infrastructure projects to drive growth.
Tax cuts feed China's consumption
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 22/06/2018
» It's tempting to view China's changes to the personal and corporate tax code in the context of US trade tensions. The reforms are really aimed more at Beijing's concerns about competitiveness and economic rebalancing, and ultimately the creation of a "moderately prosperous society".
Beijing places its bets on more state economic control
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 28/12/2017
» As 2017 wraps up and 2018 beckons, it's worth reviewing what we forecast for China in the year now ending, and to cast ahead for what themes might play out over the next 12 months. After this week's meeting of Communist Party leaders at the Central Economic Work Conference, we can expect their targets and objectives for 2018. And these meetings have great import: It was the 2015 meeting that started the ongoing "supply-side reform" campaign.
Beijing's major economic risk could be education
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 21/11/2017
» Chinese President Xi Jinping recently laid out a bold vision for transforming his country into a fully developed economy by 2050, with a particular emphasis on spurring innovation and technology. Given China's current level of human capital -- and some looming changes in the world economy -- that may be harder than he expects.
China may soon kill micro-lending, but it shouldn't
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 30/11/2017
» In their bid to reduce risk, China's financial regulators are cracking down on a promising business: online micro-lending. Although the industry has some serious problems, killing it off would be a big mistake.
China isn't quite ready to take over the world just yet
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 05/12/2017
» Almost daily, newspapers in the US, Europe and China release eye-catching headlines about China's technological advances and economic prowess. The accomplishments are real. But they're not necessarily evidence of Western failure or Chinese invincibility.
Alibaba may well have met its match in America
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 20/06/2017
» Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, already the largest Chinese firm by market capitalisation, is nothing if not ambitious. Its chief financial officer, Maggie Wu, recently told investors she expects revenue to rise by up to 49% next year, a staggering prospect. But perhaps more staggering is how Alibaba hopes to get there: In part, by tapping the US market.