Tag Archives: Chinese Economy

Counsellor Han talks about Chinese economy at a seminar at Stockholm University

By Xuefei Chen Axelsson

STOCKHOLM, Feb. 25(Greenpost)–Chinese Economic &Commercial Counsellor Han Xiaodong at the Chinese Embassy in Sweden attended a seminar on Chinese economy and Sino-Swedish economic and trade relations organised by the Business School of Stockholm University on Thursday.

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Economic and Commercial Counsellor Han gave a lecture at Stockholm University. Photo by Xuefei Chen Axelsson

He said Chinese economy is at a “New Normal ” situation transformed from the vicious cycle of high speed, unbalanced structure and being unsustainable to benevolent cycle of reasonable speed, high quality and balanced structure.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has put up forward the strategic development blueprint of belt and road aiming at helping neighbouring countries in Asia and Central Asia along the silk road to develop infrastructure such as fast train.

In Shanghai,  the new free trade zone has been established so that the registration time reduced to three days from 10 days.

Through over 30 years of development at a rate of 10 percent on average, China has become the second largest economic community. But the per capita GDP in China is still lagging behind that in developed countries.

For example, China’s percapita GDP in 2015 was 8 thousand US dollars while that in Sweden was 58 thousand US dollars.

Han said last year China’s foreign trade volume reached 3.96 trillion US dollars, down by 8 percent.

Last year China invested 14.8 billion US dollars in 49 countries along belt and road.

Han didn’t forget to mention that there are also some problems in China such as environmental issues,  saying that one third of the population are affected by smog.

This was due to the large number of vehicles and the power plants as well as other reasons.

Social security and elderly care, education are also facing great challenges.

Talking about Sino-Swedish trade, Han said bilateral trade volume reached 13.5 billion dollars last year, 3.1 percent down, compared with that of 2014.

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Economic and Commercial Counsellor Han gave a lecture at Stockholm University on Feb. 25, 2016. Photo by Xuefei Chen Axelsson

He pointed out that the new potential areas for bilateral trade will be based on China’s huge markets, industrialisation, IT, urbanisation and agricultural modernisation. He said high speed train will be an important product for China’s export.

Financial cooperation, agriculture, life science, green technology and innovation and design are the potential areas for further exchange.

The seminar was hosted by Professor Tony Fang.  Two vice professors, one assistant professor and some PhD students attended the seminar held  at the business school of Stockholm University.

 

Pressure remains on Chinese economy

BEIJING, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) — Newly released economic indicators fell short of market expectations, revealing that the Chinese economy still lacks momentum and downward pressure remains.

China’s value-added industrial output, which measures the final value of industrial production, expanded 6 percent year on year in July, down from 6.8 percent for June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.

The decline in output growth ended a steady recovery trend recorded in the second quarter of this year.

NBS statistician Jiang Yuan attributed the drop mainly to flagging external demand, a weak property sector and lowered production of some consumer goods, including automobiles and cigarettes.

Year-on-year growth in the first seven months stood at 6.3 percent, the same level as the growth for the first half of the year.

The NBS data only tracks the output of large Chinese companies with annual primary business revenues of more than 20 million yuan (3.16 million U.S. dollars).

Industrial output in China’s western regions increased by 7.9 percent in July, trailed by 7.4 percent in central areas and 6 percent in eastern regions.

Manufacturing output rose 6.6 percent, mining output added 5.6 percent, while that of the electricity, heating, gas and water sectors dropped 0.2 percent, the bureau said.

China’s fixed-asset investment, a major driver of growth, also witnessed slightly slower growth, with no sign of improvement for investment in property and infrastructure.

Retail sales held steady in July, as the growth rate was just 0.1 percentage point lower than a month ago.

Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC, said the data fell below general market expectations.

The declining output and investment growth showed the rebound in June was just temporary and pressure for growth was again on the rise, Qu said.

“With gloomy prospects for external demand, China will still need to rely on domestic demand to maintain steady growth, indicating that future monetary and fiscal policies should continue to be relaxed,” he said.

China’s exports dropped 0.9 percent from a year earlier in the first seven months, according to new customs data.

A research note from Minsheng Securities also said China’s growth is still facing huge pressure and the country needs to make more efforts to realize its goal of annual economic growth of around 7 percent.

China should take more pragmatic measures to stabilize growth, including further cuts in the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) and more targeted measures to reduce long-term interest rates, Minsheng said.

Qu added that the disappointing figures will also reinforce the market’s expectations for further depreciation of China’s currency, the yuan, posing risks of overcorrection in the exchange rate, which may lead to retaliation from other countries.

On Tuesday, China’s central bank changed the exchange rate formation system to take into consideration the closing rate of the inter-bank foreign exchange market on the previous day, as well as supply and demand in the market and price movements of major currencies.

The central parity rate of the yuan weakened by about 1.6 percent against the U.S. dollar Wednesday, following a 2-percent depreciation on Tuesday.

HSBC forecast an additional 25-basis-point interest rate cut and a 200-basis-point cut to the RRR in the second half to sustain growth.

The central bank has cut both interest rates and the RRR three times since the beginning of this year. Enditem

Source Xinhua