China Economics Weekly Property construction boom is fizzling out China’s economy has faced multiple headwinds over the past year, but it has also received a significant – and underappreciated – boost from accelerating property construction. Property developers... 19th July 2019 · 4 mins read
China Economics Weekly People’s Bank to follow the Fed The Fed has all-but-confirmed that it will cut rates at its upcoming meeting on 31st July. The PBOC is likely to follow suit, perhaps the next day, with a reduction to its reverse repo rates, the... 12th July 2019 · 6 mins read
China Economics Weekly Fiscal stimulus is back, property curbs still in place Last month’s directive to boost infrastructure spending appears to have had an immediate result, with data this week showing a surge in issuance of infrastructure financing bonds. But easing remains a... 5th July 2019 · 7 mins read
China Economics Weekly G20 truce, armyworm epidemic Trump and Xi will meet tomorrow and may agree to hold off imposing new tariffs for the time being. While this would be a positive outcome for China’s economy and markets in the short-run, any gains... 28th June 2019 · 6 mins read
China Economics Weekly Baoshang reverberations, WTO defeat In a Focus last month, we discussed what we see as the most plausible hard landing scenario for China: troubles at a small bank that spread to the interbank market and trigger a systemic banking... 21st June 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Old-school stimulus, HK protests, PBOC still selling FX China’s policymakers are returning to the familiar playbook of local government infrastructure spending to shore up growth but still, it appears, on a relatively small scale. Meanwhile, despite the... 14th June 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Chances of lasting trade deal recede Uncompromising messages from Beijing this week suggest that China’s leaders have concluded that there in no prospect of a resolution to the trade war any time soon. Limits on China’s rare earth... 7th June 2019 · 8 mins read
China Economics Weekly Takeaways from the Baoshang Bank takeover The first regulatory takeover of a Chinese bank in more than two decades is a reminder that the balance sheets of many regional lenders are far less healthy than they claim. China’s interbank market... 31st May 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Interest rate reforms unlikely to deliver hoped-for gains While the trade war has dominated the headlines, the People’s Bank has been getting on with the unglamorous work of financial reform. It is moving closer to phasing out benchmark lending rates. That... 24th May 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Huawei blacklisting, trade war weapons If strictly enforced, the US decision to ban Huawei from doing business with American firms would be major headache for the company, which accounts for around 0.2% of Chinese GDP. And the move may... 17th May 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Tariff hike, fiscal support, inflation risks The US hiked tariffs on Chinese goods on Friday. This escalation in trade tensions comes at a challenging time for the Chinese economy, with export growth already weak, fiscal support waning and swine... 10th May 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Financial sector opening, bad debt disclosures Efforts to open the door to more foreign participation in China’s financial sector took another step forward this week. But without broader free-market reforms, foreign entrants may still struggle to... 3rd May 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Equities may fall further as recovery underwhelms The less dovish tone of recent comments from the People’s Bank and from Premier Li is the latest sign that policymakers are keen to avoid the sort of debt-financed surge in growth that followed... 26th April 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Seasonality, tax cuts distort the industrial output data Among the better-than-expected data published this week, industrial output growth stood out as especially strong after it jumped by the most since March 2009. But there are reasons to think that... 18th April 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly Will residency reforms revive the property market? The government’s plans to make it easier for rural migrants in small cities to acquire urban residency permits have raised hopes of a revival in property sales. But the nationwide impact will probably... 12th April 2019 · 1 min read
China Economics Weekly More monetary easing still on the cards Markets no longer expect further monetary easing in China but we aren’t convinced. Headwinds to growth look set to resurface as support from fiscal front-loading wanes, at which stage the stimulus... 5th April 2019 · 1 min read
