Disappointing consumption numbers point to growth deceleration in early 2019, but government measures beginning to be felt. Hard data out of China for October was mixed. On the positive side, growth in infrastructure picked up, suggesting the government’s fiscal policy easing is taking effect in the real economy. Industrial production numbers stopped declining, and the mining sector has a particularly strong...
Read More »China hard data for October reveals mixed picture
Disappointing consumption numbers point to growth deceleration in early 2019, but government measures beginning to be felt.Hard data out of China for October was mixed. On the positive side, growth in infrastructure picked up, suggesting the government’s fiscal policy easing is taking effect in the real economy. Industrial production numbers stopped declining, and the mining sector has a particularly strong performance.Growth in fixed asset investment rebounded strongly in October, to 8.1%...
Read More »Moderate deceleration underway in China
The latest data releases seem to confirm our view that Chinese growth is decelerating, but our GDP forecast of 6.8% growth for 2017 remains unchanged.The latest data on China’s economic activity point to a slowdown in China’s growth momentum in the third quarter, after the positive surprise of the first half of the year. We expect growth to continue to moderate for the rest of 2017 and into 2018, but the pace of deceleration may be fairly modest. We have thus decided to keep our GDP forecast...
Read More »Upbeat PMIs in China point to solid growth momentum in Q2
June PMI surveys suggest that economic activity moderated only slightly in the last quarter, but we maintain our view the deceleration in Chinese growth will be more notable in the second half.China’s official manufacturing PMI rose to 51.7 in June, the second highest reading in 2017. The Markit manufacturing PMI also rebounded to 50.4 in June after having dropped below the 50 threshold in the previous month. The rise in both indices in June suggests that China’s growth momentum in the...
Read More »Chinese growth momentum moderates
Growth momentum in China has softened a bit after a strong first quarter. Meanwhile, US-China trade relations look like they might be improving.Economic indicators for April point to some softening in growth momentum in China. Hard data confirm the moderation seen in manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs released earlier this month, and the direction of change is consistent with our expectation that Q1 marked the peak of growth momentum in China for 2017.In our view, the deceleration in...
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