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Overview – China’s economy is on course to expand by 5.5% this year, buoyed by policy support and strong exports. But we remain less sanguine about the medium-term outlook. Domestic Demand – A ramp up in fiscal spending should boost domestic demand in …
25th June 2024
Our China Activity Proxy suggests that economic growth weakened in May on the back of a fall in services activity. Industry also slowed, following months of outperformance. We doubt this marks the start of a downturn just yet – fiscal stimulus and strong …
24th June 2024
Bond buying redux PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng this week again flagged the PBOC’s plans to start buying and selling government bonds and again argued that this wouldn’t constitute QE. (See our earlier discussion of the issue here .) The purpose of the new …
21st June 2024
The Third Plenum may conclude with a pledge of comprehensive reform in areas spanning the private sector, manufacturing, innovation, social security, economic management and more. That may excite hope of substantial change but, in the Party’s eyes, it has …
18th June 2024
Demand picks up while supply-side falters May’s activity data were a mixed bag with an uptick in retail sales and slowdown in industrial production partially reversing the recent trend of strength on the supply side and weaker demand. Consumer spending …
17th June 2024
Credit growth bottoming out thanks to fiscal support Bank loan growth in China was the slowest on record in May, but accelerated government bond issuance helped broader credit growth edge up. Fiscal loosening should support further gains in the near term. …
14th June 2024
Still a bright future in Europe China protested the European Commission’s (EC) imposition of additional tariffs on Chinese-made EVs this week but, if the EU goes no further, China’s government is likely to see this as a good outcome. The European tariffs, …
China’s rapid uptake of clean power means that it is on track to overachieve on its target of reaching peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030. That said, the pace of decline will be slow at first, not least because it will probably take time for …
13th June 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Producer prices will likely fall again soon due to overcapacity Producer prices picked up for the first time in eight months and consumer price inflation held steady in May. We …
12th June 2024
Trade barriers doing little to slow influx of goods Trade data published today showed that Chinese exports remained on a tear in May, rising 14.5% y/y in volume terms. This will add to concerns in Western countries about the influx of Chinese goods, which …
7th June 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication. Exports set to remain robust in the near-term Export values rose y/y at the fastest pace since April 2023, with export volumes also picking up. We think exports will remain …
Global demand is giving a bigger boost to China’s economy than we had anticipated this year and foreign tariffs will make little difference to aggregate export performance in the near term. We now think that China’s economy will expand 5.5% this year as a …
4th June 2024
Government spending set to reaccelerate The official PMIs for May published today were disappointing. Taken at face value, they imply that the improvement in economic momentum earlier this year has stalled. One reason appears to be that government …
31st May 2024
This report was first published on Friday 31st May covering the official PMIs. We added commentary on the Caixin manufacturing PMI on Monday 3rd June and the Caixin services and composite PMIs on Wednesday 5th June. Recovery still ongoing The PMIs for May …
China’s economy is expanding at a decent pace, with the manufacturing sector a key source of strength. The country has been increasing its global export market share, and it is unlikely that Biden’s new tariffs will do much to erode recent gains. A …
30th May 2024
Our China Activity Proxy suggests that economic momentum remains reasonably robust, fuelled by continued gains in manufacturing and a further recovery in services activity. A step-up in fiscal support and new property support measures may continue to …
Resolution of China’s property crisis would result in residential sales being substantially higher than today. Sales could rise by a third. But we wouldn’t expect prices to increase by much, if at all. And property construction activity will be weaker in …
24th May 2024
Pullback in deposit growth is not a bullish signal After picking up during the pandemic, growth in bank deposits has slowed sharply recently. (See Chart 1.) They even fell outright in April, by a record RMB3.9trn, though this may partly reflect …
Whilst export values of the “New Three” fell for the sixth consecutive month in y/y terms in April, export volumes remained close to their record peak. Meanwhile, the sharp drop-off in China’s exports of solar panels to India following the re-tightening …
20th May 2024
Property support ramps up The PBOC today announced major changes to property controls, including removal of regulatory floors for mortgage rates and a lowering of the minimum downpayment to 15% for first homes and 25% for second homes, 5%-pts lower than …
17th May 2024
Improving sentiment towards Chinese equities has sparked a further rebound over the past month, with stocks there having generally outperformed those elsewhere over this period. While we continue to see near-term upside, we think they will ultimately …
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication . Recovery hits a speed bump Industrial production continued to accelerate thanks to strong exports, but growth on most other indicators slowed, pointing to softer domestic …
Government purchases of unsold housing may help to stabilise China’s property sector in the near-term, alleviating a key economic headwind. But they won’t prevent the sector from shrinking considerably further by the end of this decade. At its quarterly …
16th May 2024
Overseas loans by Chinese banks peaked in late 2021 and have since been curtailed in response to increased debt problems among EM borrowers. While these strains are partly a consequence of global shocks, they have also underscored some flaws with China’s …
This note answers some of the most frequently asked questions that we received from clients during a recent online briefing about the latest US tariffs on China. Watch the original briefing here . What has been announced? Yesterday was the end of a …
15th May 2024
This interactive dashboard allows you to explore all of our forecasts and key data for China's economy. We also have a standalone China Activity Proxy dashboard here . If you have subscriber access to the data underlying this redesigned dashboard, you …
The tariffs announced today on US imports from China won’t cause much direct economic damage since trade in the affected goods is already low. But US economic sanctions on China seem to act like a ratchet: they only ever get tighter. In many areas that …
14th May 2024
Rebound in inflation set to be limited due to overcapacity PPI deflation eased and CPI inflation rose in March, but they remained relatively subdued compared with pre-pandemic norms. We think inflation will continue to edge up in the near term. But …
13th May 2024
Credit downturn threatens the recovery Broad credit growth slowed sharply to its weakest pace on record last month. This threatens to derail the ongoing economic recovery and is likely to trigger additional policy easing. Increased fiscal support may help …
Battery production rules aim to limit overcapacity There was a concerted effort this week, across state media and from Xi Jinping himself, to push back against foreign suggestions that China’s rising exports of “new energy” products reflect overcapacity …
10th May 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication . Export volumes have further to fall Export values returned to growth last month after contracting in March, but this was mainly due to a lower base for comparison. Export …
9th May 2024
China’s leadership argues that the country’s export success in industries like auto production is a reflection of its technological strength. It understandably doesn’t want to focus on another factor at play: the persistent weakness of domestic consumer …
8th May 2024
The sharp rise in the price of carbon under China’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) this year, to a record high, underlines that Beijing sees carbon pricing as a key part of its emissions-reduction toolkit. Although the price of polluting in China is likely …
7th May 2024
Policy hasn’t kickstarted lending to developers Bank lending decelerated to its slowest pace on record in March. The sectoral breakdown released this week provides some insight into what’s been behind the slowdown. The big picture is that the property …
3rd May 2024
Strong Q1 growth masks lacklustre domestic recovery Hong Kong’s GDP surprised to the upside in Q1, expanding by 2.3% q/q, up from a downwardly-revised 0.4% q/q in Q4 (the Bloomberg median was +0.9 and out forecast was +0.8%). While growth slowed in y/y …
2nd May 2024
Chinese policymakers won’t risk reliving the turmoil of 2015 by engineering a sudden devaluation of the renminbi . They may allow the currency to weaken gradually over the coming years to help industry deal with oversupply or to offset the impact of new …
1st May 2024
China Chart Pack (Apr. 24) …
30th April 2024
Most analysts expect China’s inflation rate to rebound to around 2% by 2026. In contrast, we think that persistent imbalances between supply and demand will keep it close to zero for the foreseeable future. This will make it harder to manage China’s high …
Leadership promises continued policy support, new round of reforms The readout of the Politburo’s quarterly meeting on economic affairs has just been published by state media. The tone remained dovish, suggesting that policy will remain supportive in the …
This report was first published on Tuesday 30 th April covering the official PMIs and the Caixin manufacturing PMI. We added commentary on the Caixin services and composite PMIs on Monday 6 th May. A touch softer but recovery still intact, for now The …
All the signs suggest that a second Trump administration would take a more protectionist approach to trade. Export demand in Mexico, East Asia and ASEAN would be particularly hard hit by a universal US import tariff or a dollar devaluation, and those …
29th April 2024
New monetary tool aimed at risk mitigation, not QE Speculation had emerged that the PBOC might start quantitative easing (QE) after it was revealed earlier this month that President Xi Jinping had called on the central bank to increase the buying and …
26th April 2024
Our China Activity Proxy (CAP) suggests the economy saw a healthy expansion in March, driven by the continued strength of industry. While we think that fiscal support will keep fuelling the economy in the near-term, structural headwinds will start to drag …
24th April 2024
While EM policymakers haven’t raised concerns about Chinese overcapacity in the same way that their counterparts in the US and Europe have, they too are facing widening trade deficits with China. We suspect EMs will be less likely than DMs to turn to …
The rapid expansion in China’s manufacturing capacity of green technology is a symptom of the country’s investment-led growth model and so there is no reason to believe that any change in tack is imminent. Against this backdrop, western governments will …
23rd April 2024
A week spent visiting client s, contacts and friends in Beijing and Shanghai has underlined the extent of the pessimistic shift in sentiment within China. At first glance, China’s economy is doing fine . The streets of Beijing and Shanghai are bustling …
GDP breakdown points to stronger services activity The better-than-expected Q1 GDP figures released earlier this week added to wider evidence that the economy has regained some momentum recently. The detailed sectoral breakdown, published a day after the …
19th April 2024
Fiscally-fuelled improvement unlikely to last long Stronger-than-expected official GDP figures indicate that China’s economy gained momentum in Q1, thanks to policy support. But monthly activity data suggest that this policy-driven recovery is shaky. …
16th April 2024
Strong US CPI puts further pressure on the RMB The stronger US CPI print on Wednesday pushed back expectations for Fed rate cuts. Most currencies depreciated against the US dollar as a result. But, while the offshore renminbi weakened 0.4% on Wednesday, …
12th April 2024
This page has been updated with additional analysis since first publication Credit growth plummets in a further sign of weak demand Bank loan and broad credit growth in China both decelerated sharply in March. (See Chart 1.)While we expect the PBOC to cut …
