cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54733640
China’s consumer spending may have contracted for the first time since the pandemic, a setback that would extend a slowdown in an economy whose momentum is faltering despite booming trade.
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Absent stronger demand at home, the economy is set to shift down a gear this quarter as it navigates the disruptions caused by the conflict in the Middle East while the government dials back spending.
Although exports are proving largely immune to the upheaval in shipping and energy markets, some analysts estimate that China’s growth slowed to roughly 4 per cent in April, tracking below the government’s official full-year target of 4.5 to 5 per cent.
“Soft Chinese domestic activity data is likely an omen of decelerating growth in the second quarter, even as external demand remains strong,” said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank. “While there appears to be limited urgency for now, China still has room for monetary easing this year if it’s needed.”
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Higher energy prices stemming from the war in Iran are adding further risk to what’s already a bumpy outlook, especially if companies begin to pass on more of their cost increases to consumers.
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A decline in retail sales in May would mark their first monthly drop since the country reopened after Covid-19 in late 2022. The drop is in large part a form of payback for a government programme that encouraged households to trade in old consumer goods, prompting them to bring forward their purchases.
Car sales plunged more than 22 per cent in May from a year earlier in the sixth straight month of double-digit declines. The government has scaled back subsidies for electric vehicle purchases this year, while the Iran oil shock hurt sales of petrol-powered cars.
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Fixed-asset investment (FAI) …[in May] is estimated to fall 7 per cent on year following a 8.2 per cent slump the previous month, Goldman Sachs economists led by Andrew Tilton wrote in a Friday note. They blamed heavy rainfall and a heat wave in different parts of the country and the slow pace of government bond issuance for the weakness.
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The government lowered public spending in March and April as bond sales decelerated. Authorities likely felt comfortable with the economy’s first-quarter performance, while economists also pointed to a potential lack of eligible projects.
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“Domestic demand remains weak,” Huachuang Securities economists, including Zhang Yu, wrote in a note earlier this month.
“What stands out is the industrial output reading under high oil prices – if it continues to stay soft, it could signal a risk that second-quarter economic growth falls below the target range,” they said, referring to Beijing’s annual expansion goal.
considered how the fumbled the covid response, like the 1st sars, they hid numbers of people being infected/died. and thier version of the vaccine is less effective.
Source: Your ass.
China had a stronger covid response than any other country. They fumbled it by not adjusting the response to weaker variants and not forcing Shanghai to do real lockdowns so the rest of China kept getting reinfected.
You’re talking about a real place, people can go there you can’t just make up whatever shit sounds right to you.
So did they fumble it or not? You say they’re wrong but your comment kind of supports [that part of] what they said.
As for the deaths, I’m not particularly anti-China but I didn’t really believe the numbers they provided. Just like how I didn’t believe my own government’s numbers
They fumbled it less than literally any other country. Nobody else built the infrastructure to test, contact-trace, and implement precise lockdowns as efficiently. I have numerous criticisms, but in the context of other countries that did a half-hearted lockdown, then sent everybody back to work and stopped masking, it would be borderline deceitful to bring them up in a context like this.
A common theme when you have first or second-hand knowledge of anything in China is that any criticism you hear in the west is entirely orthogonal to actual issues, like its been filtered through a combination Telephone and then Qanon-style yes-and- confabulation.
As far as concealing the deaths of millions, let alone hundreds of millions, with hundreds of millions more family, friends, coworkers, etc, its too absurd to contemplate.