Courtesy of Sinocism: 药监局原副局长为升官诬告局长 逛天上人间被拍_新闻_腾讯网 – 近日，国家药监局原党组成员、副局长张敬礼因涉嫌受贿罪、诬告陷害罪、非法经营罪在市二中院受审。检方指控张敬礼的受贿额为117万余元；非法出售自己编著的书籍经营额达2300余万元，非法获利1600余万元；指使他人寄出1300余封诬告陷害他人的信件。 China Plays Down Sea Disputes to Woo Asian Nations from U.S. ‘Siren Song’ – Bloomberg – British man found begging in Chinese city of Guangzhou – Telegraph – “I am not begging, but I need help,” he told the Guangzhou Information Times newspaper. “I was on my way to Hong Kong
Links courtesy of Sinocism: China vows closer military ties with ally North Korea amid lingering tensions on peninsula – The Washington Post – U.S.-China tension spills over into Asia summit | Reuters – China’s Wen warns outside forces off sea dispute | Reuters – China Bashing on the Campaign Trail – Businessweek – Presidential candidates love to talk tough
If you’re wondering why the ASX kicked down this afternoon then you need look no further than this from Bloomberg: China’s home prices fell in 33 of 70 cities monitored by the government in October, the worst performance since it expanded property curbs and scrapped the reporting of its national average housing data this year.
FT Beyond Brics flagged a report from Bloomberg Businessweek on the pessimistic outlook from Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology’s (1157.HK) boss Zhan Chunxin, saying that “Demand for construction machinery has shrunk drastically and growth will no doubt continue to slow next year”. There are a number of things that drive his pessimistic outlook, as
Unknown to everyone except the People’s Bank of China, at the time of announcement of the monetary statistics, the PBOC had quietly expanded the definition of M2 money supply, and announced it only last night in a statement. The statement essentially said that the new M2 definition has been used in the October monetary statistics, which showed
The rebalancing of the Chinese economy will rely on consumers. Certainly, the Chinese government is well aware of the problem, and has put forward policies to encourage spending, but the result is mediocre. While the share of exports is declining, the share of investment has been surging. Consumers are still not consuming nearly enough. Now,
China’s latest monetary statistics could suggest that there is some easing as loans growth surprises on the upside. But it contained one real shocker: household deposits fell by RMB727 billion. This has happened before, as deposits shift out of banks deposits to wealth management products. Those products are off balance sheet, and most probably outside
The General Administration of Custom of China published the latest set of trade figures yesterday. First, on a month-on-month basis, both exports and imports fell. Exports fell by 7.2% in October on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, or –1.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis, while imports fell by 9.5% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, or +3.2% on
Inflation in China continues to moderate. The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that headline consumer price index (CPI) inflation has fallen from 6.1% yoy in September to 5.5% yoy in October, in-line with the consensus. On a month-on-month basis, headline inflation in October was 0.1% vs. 0.5% in September. Food prices is
I have argued a number of times that the Chinese yuan could depreciate, against the consensus. Now, according to the Financial Times, Fan Jianping, chief economist of the State Information Center, thinks that yuan should be allowed to weaken: Fan Jianping, chief economist of the State Information Center, a think-tank within the powerful state planning bureau,
China’s inflation figures for October will be out on Wednesday. The consensus is looking for a 5.4% yoy rise of the headline CPI, vs. 6.1% in September. China’s consumer prices inflation has been driven pretty much by food prices, and food prices have been stubbornly high for a while, which pushed the CPI inflation high, and indeed,
The real estate market in China has started to move lower, at least so it seems. Certainly, not everyone is happy about it, as some buyers who bought new flats just months ago are now sitting on an unrealised loss as property developers cut prices. As we know, that anger boiled over in the smashing of some developer
Exclusively from Michael Pettis newsletter: Credit growth in China has been tight in the past month or two. This hasn’t yet shown up in the GDP growth numbers, but if low credit growth continues, it will almost certainly result in much slower GDP growth. The main thing generating growth in China is investment, and investment is largely
Nomura has published a monster report, attaching 1-in-3 chance of a China economic hard landing by the end of 2014, defined as an “abrupt slowdown in real GDP growth to an average of 5% y-o-y or less over four consecutive quarters”. They believe that the growth potential for China is 8% in real term, thus 5%
China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) declined in October after improving for two months. The headline PMI declined from 51.2 in September to 50.4 in October. Once again, new exports order dipped below 50 after improving for a month, indicating weaknesses in the global demand continues as the global economy slows. The new orders index
Li Daokui, academic advisor and member of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China, spoke last Saturday on the inflation outlook of China as well as real estate market regulation, according to Xinhua. Although there has been some noise about easing real estate curbs amid recent aggressive price cutting and subsequent protests, Li Daokui’s view is
On Thrusday I pointed to the falling profits of Chinese real estate developers. On Friday, Xinhua reported that real estate inventories of property developers continue to rise. Among 75 of listed real estate developers listed in A share market, total inventories have reached CNY725.88 billion, an increase of 41.38% from the 3rd quarter of last year. The debt-to-asset ratio is also
Everyone’s favourite China short, Jim Chanos warned Bloomberg overnight that the China slowdown has just begun. The anchor give bearish Jim a fair beating and I found a few of his responses were a little thin. But on the whole, the Chanos view that there is some distance to travel before China pulls off any
So, as Chinese real estate developers report their 3rd quarter results, we continue to see falling profits. Xinhua reports that for 47 real estate developers listed on the A share market which have reported their 3rd quarter earnings, revenue for the 3rd quarter amounted to CNY36.476 billion, a 12.5% decline compared to the second quarter. Net
Chinese property developers have been in trouble for the best part of a year. Recently the penny dropped and many began cutting prices. Then guess what? People who already owned properties got cross and, in Shanghai, went to smash the showroom and sales office of a developer offering 30% discounts on flats. But China is, after all, run by a
Yesterday we got a few remarks from China’s Premier Wen Jiabao. According to Mingpao, Premier Wen said that control of food prices remains an important priority, with the usual problems that have been discussed here and there, including his concern on the supply situation, the costs of logistics (note that moving stuff within China can be
Today’s chart comes from EconomPic created from the data and analysis within a recent Michael Pettis newsletter exploring the composition of Chinese GDP, whilst looking at if lower (or negative) interest rates cause higher savings. From 2001 to 2010, consumption has fallen from 45.3% to 33.8% whilst investment has increased from 34.6% of GDP to
Yesterday, Sun Hung Kai Properties (16.HK) won the tender for the Nam Cheong station residential project for HK$11.8 billion, well below market expectations. The price paid implies an accommodation value of HK$4,468 per sq. ft., below the market expectation of about HK$5,500 per sq. ft. The reality about this underwhelming land sale is that the
Here’s a little follow-up on the Chinese GDP numbers. The growth figure produced by the National Bureau of Statistics (i.e. that 9.1% number) is growth in real terms, not nominal terms, one point that some people get confused every now and then. The nominal yoy change for Q3 GDP was actually 21.3%. That would mean
Yesterday, Zarathustra’s posted another interesting China report, which contained the below chart showing the continued strong growth (25% YoY) of fixed asset investment: Below find a PBS Newshour video report (h/t Hugh Pavletich) from Beijing-based economist, Yoram Bauman, who explores the possibility of a Beijing housing bubble. In the video, Bauman takes viewers on a
Since late last week, the news from Chinese media has been that China Construction Bank has raised mortgage rates for first-home mortgages in Beijing. Sina confirms that banks in more cities are now increasing interest rates. And now Mingpao says banks in 14 cities have raised mortgages rates. The latest round of increase in interest rates is happening in Beijing,
The National Bureau of Statistics just published the latest set of economic data for third quarter, which sort of disappointed the market. The third quarter GDP grew by 9.1% in real term compared with the same period a year ago, missing expectation of 9.3%. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, GDP grew by 2.3% in real terms, slightly
As pointed out here months ago, monetary tightening of China has made credit difficult to come by. As a result, some companies have had to borrow from the shadow banking system. Meanwhile, other companies which have access to the Hing Kong banking system have been borrowing there as credit is much cheaper (from the perspective of Hong
I missed this previously. The foreign exchange reserves of China fell in September compared to August, while remaining flat for the quarter. While this is an expected outcome if the economy slows with the trade surplus narrowing and possibly less capital inflow (or even outflow), it is surprising to me that it is already happening
The People’s Bank of China published the latest set of monetary statistics, which are no longer reliable… M2 Money supply grew by 13.0% yoy, well below the long-run pre-financial crisis average rate of around 16.8% yoy and slowest in many years, and less than the expected growth of 14% yoy, while M1 rose by 8.9%
