Showing 1 - 10 of 11
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.
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.
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.
Could China be close to recession?
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 02/06/2017
» For the first time, China is facing a dreaded prospect: the inverted bond yield curve. The phenomenon, in which long-term interest rates sink below short-term interest rates, has caused some consternation among market-watchers, who know it's traditionally a harbinger of recession. The inversion suggests markets expect interest rates to fall eventually as monetary authorities move to stimulate economic activity.
Beware of China's wealth-management reforms
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 07/03/2017
» A major factor behind the soaring growth of risky wealth-management products in China is that investors typically think the government stands behind them. Lately, nervous regulators have been emphasising that this isn't so. But they'll have to do a lot more to change expectations in a state-dominated economy.
Guidance on risk in China in 2017
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 30/12/2016
» Each December, China's leaders meet to lay out their economic agenda for the next year. And each December, China-watchers pore over their every word, much like Kremlinologists during the Cold War. It bears remembering that these pronouncements are rarely predictive, and that the best sources of insight on China's economy are usually found elsewhere. Here are a few key points to keep in mind next year.
Here's why GDP is China's most illusory indicator
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 28/09/2016
» Among investors and economists who study China, few arguments are more contentious than growth -- more specifically, how to measure it. Officially, China's economy has been growing at an annualised rate of nearly 10% for the past three decades. But plenty of analysts will argue that those figures are highly optimistic.