China Economy

Chinese exports are out for March and show several unexpected results (or “shocks” as they say).

By Leith van Onselen China’s most famous ghost city, Ordos in inner-Mongolia, has regularly been cited as a prime example of China’s unsustainable construction-led economy.

Chinese inflation has reversed its February spike in March, down to 2.1% in March: Source: Bloomberg As you can see the falls were all about food prices.

By Leith van Onselen Above is an extract of a video interview on the Daily Ticker with Michael Pettis, professor of finance at Peking University in Beijing, talking about the outlook for the Chinese economy.

Cross-posted from The Conversation In recent months, talk of an emerging crisis in China’s financial sector has been getting louder.

Here’s something to watch and not just for the value your portfolio.

Cross-posted from FTAlphaville. The China Banking Regulatory Commission last week issued several strict-sounding new rules applying to the issuance of Wealth Management Products (WMPs).

In a downbeat day of data here is some good news. China’s non-manufacturing PMI (which is not services) registered a solid gain in March of 1.1 points to 55.6: Source: Bloomberg New orders also rose slightly.

China has released its industrial profits for February and a solid rebound is in evidence with a jump to 17.2% from 5.3% in January:   The internals show big jumps in service sectors, though the data is sketchy: Another data point favouring a decent recovery.

A couple of important milestones in the Chinese recovery were passed overnight.

Find below a new study by the Federal Reserve of San Francisco examining the question of how accurate a guide Chinese GDP figures were in tracking the 2012 slowdown.

In his latest newsletter, Michael Pettis notes that a raft of Chinese leaders are making the right noises about reform of the economy but several large barriers remain: The 2013 NPC and CPPCC Annual Sessions have ended with the formal selection of China’s new leaders.

By Leith van Onselen Over the weekend, the OECD released a detailed 161-page economic survey on China, which provided a rosy assessment of China’s economic prospects. The OECD notes that China’s economic performance has been spectacular, with its rate of growth over the past 30-years being the fastest in history (see next chart).

Find below NAB’s China Monthly update.

Bullish news today with the release of China’s Flash PMI showing the manufacturing recovery back on track in March up 1.3 points to 51.7: Moreover, the internals were uniformly positive:   No gripes here.

With Australia’s iron ore miners being pulverised on the bourse today it might be time for some iron ore bear porn.

From the AFR this morning comes more news to pressure iron ore: China’s central bank would strengthen policies to calm the rising property market and adopt a “prudent” monetary policy to contain inflation, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, said.

From Forbes comes an interesting story on the results of China’s recently announced new property curbs: China is determined to poke holes in its housing bubble.

Missed this yesterday.

By Leith van Onselen Above is an interesting segment on CNBC’s Squawk Box discussing the latest Chinese economic data and whether the recovery underway is based on solid foundations.

In February, China’s trade surplus came in at $US15.25 billion, beating expectations of a $US6.9 billion deficit.

From Reuters, BHP responds to China: “We aim to improve transparency by increasing liquidity in the spot market,” BHP said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters.