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COUNTRY INSIGHTS

Waiting for the Third Plenum
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 17 Jun 2024

Special points to highlight in this report: As I mentioned in my May report, the Third Plenum is scheduled to be held in July, much later than the expected October or November date last year. Most analysts believe the long delay suggests the lack of a consensus over how to address weak domesti...

What will China do about excess housing?
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 20 May 2024 · 1 response

Special points to highlight in this issue: * The Third Plenum is scheduled to be held in July, much later than the expected October or November date last year. Most analysts believe the long delay suggests the lack of a consensus over how to address weak domestic demand, a rapidly contracting...

Why inflating debt away isn’t an option for China
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 22 Apr 2024

Special points to highlight in this report: * First quarter results were better than expected in terms of the volume of economic activity delivered, but there has been no improvement in the composition of growth. In spite of continued promises by Beijing to deliver demand-side growth, Chinese ...

Quick thoughts on the Two Sessions
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 08 Mar 2024

Special points to highlight in this report: * Although we can expect flexibility on the downside, China’s 2024 GDP growth target of 5 percent is nonetheless aggressive given the headwinds. There are debt constraints on a major revival of investment—whether in the property sector, infrastructu...

The Year of the Dragon is supposed to be a good year
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 12 Feb 2024

Special points to highlight in this report: * One of the key issues in the Year of the Dragon is likely to be how seriously Beijing is about reining in non-productive infrastructure spending among its more highly-indebted provinces. In an announcement last month— that didn’t get as much attent...

2023 ended pretty weak, suggesting a weak start for 2024
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 17 Jan 2024

Special points to highlight in this report: * There were no surprises in Beijing’s recent economic data releases, either for December or for the full-year 2023. As expected, with annual GDP growth of 5.2 percent, China managed to exceed its GDP growth target, but (also as expected) not withou...

Managing debt will be a major issue for Beijing in 2024
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 28 Dec 2023

Special points to highlight in this report: * The problem of what to do with the debt will probably dominate economic policy-making discussions in Beijing in 2024. As of now, there seems to be a split between economists, who want to address the quality of economic activity, and non-economists,...

China’s external constraints
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 17 Nov 2023

Special points to highlight in this report: * We continued to see a slow recovery in growth in October along with, far more importantly, a slight improvement in the quality of growth, as consumption growth for the year outpaced GDP growth. But as always, nothing fundamental has changed. *...

Bank share prices imply slower long-term growth
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 18 Oct 2023

Special points to highlight in this report: * We continue to see the expected partial recovery in the Chinese economy for the second half of 2023, thanks to expansionary policies by Beijing and a surge in debt. For now, I expect this partial recovery to continue through the end of 2023 and in...

Expect a pickup in economic activity over the rest of 2023
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 28 Sep 2023

Special points to highlight in this issue: * Data releases in August suggest that we will see an increase in economic activity over the rest of the year, and perhaps even a partial reversal of the relative weakening this year of consumption as a share of GDP. There is a sense that the PBoC an...

China’s debt cannot be resolved by shuffling debt-servicing costs
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 29 Aug 2023

Special points to highlight in this issue: * July data were very poor, indicating that weak demand continues to plague the Chinese economy. Imports were down, inflation was low, and retail sales seriously disappointed. * Debt creation in July was much lower than expected, but economic gro...

Surging Chinese (and US) debt is structural
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 17 Jul 2023

Special points to highlight in this issue: * Both June and second quarter numbers were disappointing. I continue to expect growth to surprise on the upside in the second half of 2023, but only because there is increasing pressure on Beijing, worried about a disappointing first half of the yea...

How will Beijing respond in the second half of 2023?
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 27 Jun 2023 · 2 responses

Special points to highlight in this issue: * Growth will probably surprise on the upside in the second half of 2023 as Beijing, worried about a disappointing first half of the year, does all it can do to boost economic activity. * But what can it do? Consumption doesn’t seem to be revivin...

The role of the US dollar in anchoring the global trading system
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 26 May 2023

Special points to highlight in this issue: * Trade, inflation, retail sales and industrial production data all pointed in the same way in April. China’s much-anticipated “consumption revival” still hasn’t started. All the data suggest that Chinese household income isn’t rising fast enough to ...

Will this year’s “consumption revival” disappoint?
CHINA FINANCIAL · Report · 18 Apr 2023

Special points to highlight in this issue: * GDP in the first quarter of 2023 grew a better-than-expected 4.5 percent year on year, or 2.2 percent month on month. While we have almost certainly seen some rebalancing in the month of March, with consumption growing faster than GDP, it is still ...

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