Peak global growth narrative lacks nuance

Slowdowns in China and the US should not be taken as evidence that the global recovery is stalling. Admittedly, it is not just some high-profile data from the US and China that have weakened recently. Recoveries in retail sales, industrial output, and trade more broadly have generally flattened off, while the PMIs have dipped too. But some commentators have cast these developments in too negative a light. Growth in the US is normalising after unprecedented stimulus and China’s economy is coming back down to earth from above-trend levels. Meanwhile, many survey indicators have merely edged down from record levels. And while the softer production and sales of goods can partly be pinned on shortages of materials and parts, they also reflect a benign reversion of consumer spending away from goods towards services as economies re-open. Most of the world is behind the US and China in re-opening and so is yet to reap the full benefits of lifting restrictions. While weaker growth in China will exert an arithmetic drag on global growth in Q3 and Q4, we expect a pick-up in growth in the rest of the world in the second half of the year.