Global weakness to drag on growth

While pessimism has been growing about the world economy, the last month’s data from China have actually not been that bad. But China’s economy is weaker today than on the eve of the global crisis three years ago and won’t be able to shrug off the problems elsewhere or be able to completely offset them. Having recently downgraded our expectations for Europe and the US, we now expect China’s GDP to grow 8.5% next year (previously 9%).