Browse by Tags

Global Economic Watch » All Tags » consumption » China (RSS)

KnowNOW!

Global Economic Watch

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

View more

Other Useful Blogs

Archives

  • IMF Lowering Expectations for Growth in China

    The IMF released its economic outlook for China this morning, and the big takeaway is that IMF economists have lowered their expectations for economic growth. The Chinese economy has, once again, shown its resilience in the midst of a difficult external environment, buoyed by robust corporate profitability and rising household incomes. However, net exports will prove to be a significant drag on growth in the coming two years, with the current account surplus remaining at 3–4 percent of GDP. As a result, growth is expected to fall to 81⁄4 percent this year (from 9.2 percent in 2011), gathering speed in the latter part of this year and rising to 83⁄4 percent in 2013. Here is a look at the IMF's GDP growth projections for China this year: And here is one look at the importance of exports to China's economy: While China weathered the Global Economic Recession of 2008-2009 relatively well, the big concern is that Europe's economic woes will hit China harder this time around. Read the IMF's China Economic Outlook here . (Hat tip Reuters )

  • Feldstein: If China's Savings Rate Goes Up, Interest Rates Will Follow

    China's latest 5-year-plan--the country's 12th--seeks to "improve people's livelihoods, social infrastructure and safety nets, and to tackle rising inequality," according to the BBC 's Sarah Wang . And that likely means pushing for an increase in consumer spending. Martin Feldstein believes that any significant shift away from maximizing GDP growth as China's overarching economic objective will bring have far reaching consequences on the global economy. Namely, interest rates will likely go up as China's savings rate goes down. At Project Syndicate , Feldstein writes: A country that saves more than it invests in equipment and structures (as China does) has the extra output to send abroad as a current-account surplus, while a country that invests more than it saves (as the United States does) must fill the gap by importing more from the rest of the world than it exports. And a country with a current-account surplus has the funds to lend and invest in the rest of the world, while a country with a current-account deficit must finance its external gap by borrowing from the rest of the world. More precisely, a country’s current-account balance is exactly equal to the difference between its national saving and its investment. The future reduction in China’s saving will therefore mean a reduction in China’s current-account surplus – and thus in its ability to lend to the US and other countries. If the new emphasis on increased consumption shrank China’s saving rate by 5% of its GDP, it would still have the world’s highest saving rate. But a five-percentage-point fall would completely eliminate China’s current-account surplus. That may not happen, but it certainly could happen by the end of the five-year plan. If it does, the impact on the global capital market would be enormous. With no current-account surplus, China would no longer be a net purchaser of US government bonds and other foreign securities. Moreover, if the Chinese government and Chinese firms want to continue investing in overseas oil resources and in foreign businesses, China will have to sell dollar bonds or other sovereign debt from its portfolio. The net result would be higher interest rates on US and other bonds around the world. Read China’s Five-Year Plan and Global Interest Rates here .

  • James Surowiecki on China's 'Consumption Problem'

    In the latest Financial Page column at The New Yorker , James Surowiecki takes a look at consumption in China. The worlds's most populous nation has developed a reputation for thrift to the extreme. He estimates that Chinese households and institutions sock away $2.5 trillion a year. And consumption is just 35% of GDP--"significantly lower than for most Asian countries and only half the rate in the United States," Surowiecki writes. But it hasn't always been this way in China: One common explanation for this thrift is that it’s the product of “Confucian values.” Yet China has not always been so thrifty—in the eighties, consumption was more than fifty per cent of G.D.P.—and today other “Confucian” countries consume far more than China does. The real source of China’s underconsumption is the way it manages its economy. Credit isn’t always that easy to come by. China’s policy of holding down the value of its currency means that consumer prices are higher than they would otherwise be, which obviously discourages spending. And, as a recent McKinsey Global Institute study points out, once you move beyond China’s biggest cities, there’s often a dearth of retail outlets and products for sale. Potential spenders are also held back by systemic issues. Paradoxically, in this still putatively Communist society, families for the most part have to fend for themselves. Health insurance is limited in what it covers and far from universal, so getting sick can be a costly proposition. Only a fraction of the workforce receives unemployment benefits, while pensions are underfunded and haphazardly administered. A scarcity of student loans and subsidies for higher education, meanwhile, means that paying for college requires hefty savings. The inadequacy of the social safety net forces the Chinese to engage in “precautionary savings,” buffering themselves against disaster. A recent Brookings Institution study attributes much of the increase in household savings to the rising cost of health care, together with that of housing and education. Read The Frugal Republic here .