Word: china
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Others remain unconvinced, viewing China, in effect, as an economy on steroids. Bank-lending numbers announced last week showed an extraordinary leap. New loans in June totaled the equivalent of $224 billion, more than double the previous month's lending. The total amount of money that banks have loaned thus far in 2009 already exceeds the total amount loaned for all of last year. Speculative froth in China's financial markets abounds. Long-futures interest on copper contracts on the Shanghai Metals Exchange - bets that the price of copper will continue to rise - recently exceeded the total amount of copper...
...analysts still skeptical of China's recovery story, major questions hung over the announcement today. One concerns long-standing doubts about the reliability of government economic data - what one U.S. hedge-fund manager calls "the Beijing fudge factor." In the first quarter of this year, Beijing reported 6.1% GDP growth, but electricity consumption overall in the country appeared to decline. How a country the size of China could grow by 6% yet use less electricity was puzzling. And in the first six months of this year, overall rail-freight traffic declined in China. Again, how that squares with accelerating growth...
...generation snapped back sharply in the second quarter, statistics show. Some analysts believe the drop late last year and early in 2009 was consistent with an economy in which heavy users of power, such as steel and aluminum factories, were slashing production is response to weakened global demand. Now, China's aggressive government spending has refired the furnaces...
...Andrew Barber, Asia strategist for Research Edge, an equity-research firm based in New Haven, Conn., believes Beijing's National Bureau of Statistics "well understands that there are doubts in the markets about the reliability of China's data. But unlike a year ago, they are actively trying to take baby steps toward more transparency." Government statisticians recently announced that they would work with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to improve data quality...
...bigger issue that divides economists is whether China's growth spurt is sustainable. Goldman Sachs and several other major investment banks are increasing their China growth forecasts for the rest of this year and into 2010. Strong retail sales and household-survey data show that consumption is contributing to growth and may help sustain it even if government spending levels off. (See pictures of China's investment in Africa...