planet Ciaina , a maggio hanno avuto un boom sulle esportazioni incredibile
China overheating?
Posted by
Gwen Robinson on Jun 11 09:46. Here’s a pop-quiz for China-watchers on Friday:
Does this:
Chinese inflation exceeds 3% target
Chinese inflation has exceeded the 3 per cent target set by the government for the year, at a time when wage pressures in the economy are intensifying, but other indicators released on Friday suggest that growth in China is slowing.
Consumer price inflation rose to 3.1 per cent in May from 2.8 per cent the month before, while factory gate inflation was also higher at 7.1 per cent, up from 6.8 per cent.
The continuing rise in consumer prices comes as an
outbreak of strikes in several industrial areas of the country is raising the prospect of considerable wage inflation in China.
Plus this:
Chinese exports surge in May
Chinese exports jumped 48.5 per cent last month in spite of the financial crisis in Europe, again increasing pressure on Beijing to appreciate its currency against the US dollar.
The strong increase in exports, which was much bigger than expected by analysts, meant that China recorded a trade surplus in May of $19.5bn, compared with a $1.7bn surplus in April and a modest deficit in March.
The figures suggested that the economic problems in Europe, which is China’s largest export market, have yet to have any pronounced effect on demand for Chinese goods. However, economists cautioned that it could take several weeks before any difficulties in Europe would feed through to the trade numbers.
And this:
China’s property prices rise more-than-estimated 12.4%
China’s
property prices rose at the second-fastest pace on record in May, showing little sign yet that the government crackdown on speculation will work to avert an asset-price bubble.
The 12.4 percent gain compared with a record 12.8 percent increase in April from a year earlier, the
National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement its website. The data series, covering 70 cities, began in 2005. The value of sales slid 25 percent from the previous month.
… add up to an overheating economy?
As FT Alphaville
noted on Thursday, some of the Chinese figures look good, especially the latest trade figures indicating there has been little fall-out from the eurozone’s crisis on China’s export sector. But stagflation risk is rising.
And judging by the increasingly
menacing rhetoric out of the US, so is political pressure on Beijing for a
renminbi appreciation against the dollar.
According to CLSA’s Christopher Wood, however, on the currency front, continuing concerns about a deterioration of European export markets are likely to dampen any willingness to allow the renminbi to appreciate.
Meanwhile, on the inexorable rise in Chinese property prices, Beijing is likely to maintain its tightening policy towards the residential property market through to the end of the third quarter at a minimum – or until there is a clear indication that property prices have started falling, possibly by as much as 20 per cent in Beijing and Shanghai, says Wood.
Meanwhile, wage hikes
forced on Foxconn and other companies operating in China indicate imminent wage rises throughout coastal China, as well as an overall rise in minimum wage levels. Wood views this as “primarily as more of a positive for consumption than as a negative for exporters’ margins”.
The best way to ease the undeniable social tensions triggered by China’s property boom is to develop a social housing policy, notes Wood.
And indeed, the FT’s Beijing bureau chief Geoff Dyer
writes on Friday that China’s plans for a residential property tax could pave the way for one of Beijing’s most “important social reforms in years”.
But, says Wood, it will be entirely up to the national government, as “neither local governments nor private developers are incentivised to build … low cost housing”.
China’s property prices are still key to the direction of Asian stock markets, in his view. He notes: “The correction in China, and therefore Asia, has further to run with 2300 on the Shanghai Composite Index still viewed as the likely support level. The index is unlikely to rally unless the property stocks commence a real rally”.
Plenty, then, to keep China-watchers busy.