China Economic News

The opening up of China market is accelerating lately. Further FTZs are launching soon...

Guangdong Free Trade Zone to launch on March 18: sources

The high-profile Guangdong Free Trade Zone (FTZ) will be launched on March 18, soon after the National People's Congress, an officially backed trade association and a source close to the matter said.

The government-supported Guangdong Cross-Border E-Commerce Association said on its official microblog and in a notice to its members that the date of the zone's launch had been rescheduled for next Wednesday as Hu Chunhua, the Communist Party head of Guangdong and Zhu Xiaodan , the province's governor, would attend the unveiling ceremony and give a speech.

Another source close to the matter confirmed the date.
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http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1...18-sources

One step close for internalization of RMB...

China's mega international payment system is ready, will launch this year - report

The China International Payment System (CIPS) is due to kick off this year, bringing the yuan a step closer to becoming a global trading currency, as the new system will make payment transfers just as easy as in dollars and euro.

The launch is expected in September or October, depending on how tests go, a source told Reuters. Another person with direct knowledge of the matter said the goal is to start the first phase before December, Reuters reported.
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http://rt.com/business/239189-china-paym...tem-ready/

China's Biggest Shipyard Is Now a Ghost Ship
http://english.caixin.com/2015-03-11/100790192.html

(12-03-2015, 12:43 PM)Behappyalways Wrote: China's Biggest Shipyard Is Now a Ghost Ship
http://english.caixin.com/2015-03-11/100790192.html

Rongsheng remains halted in SEHK, pending for inside information and a possible very substantial disposal.

Let's see the fate of the shipbuilder.

Corruption crackdown causes slowdown
691 words
13 Mar 2015
The Australian Financial Review
AFNR
English
Copyright 2015. Fairfax Media Management Pty Limited.

Shanghai | China's state-owned media is surprisingly good at pin-pointing the very issue the government does not wish to talk about.

For those of us trying to understand China, it's a great help.

As the National People's Congress comes to an end this weekend in Beijing, one such issue has burst into the open, thanks mainly to the state media.

It has been furiously denying there is any link between the Communist Party's corruption crackdown and slowing economic growth.

The state media's spin began on the front page of Saturday's China Daily, when President Xi Jinping was reported to have told a provincial delegation its achievements showed "the anti-graft campaign does not undermine economic development".

"Instead [it] is conducive to continuing healthy development," the paper said.

In the long term, this is certainly true, but over the next couple of years, Xi's corruption crackdown will be a big factor in slowing growth.

The reason is that government officials and executives at state-owned enterprises are too scared to make decisions for fear of being labelled corrupt.

"The more projects they approve the more problems it brings," said one person familiar with the sector.

Equally, some have argued that corruption is so ingrained that nothing happens without a red envelope or wire transfer offshore.

Such paralysis showed up in China's budget papers last week, via an admission that 112.4 billion yuan ($23 billion) of allocated money was not spent last year.

The Premier, Li Keqiang, said it would be carried over and used to boost the economy this year.

But a former government auditor highlighted the problem. Without mentioning corruption, he said cryptically that these surplus funds were a result of "demotivated" government officials.

This somehow made it through the censors, along with comments that officials no longer wanted to "take responsibility" for decisions.

For most, this would be enough to demonstrate the link between the corruption campaign and slowing growth. Decisions are clearly not being made and consumption has also taken a hit due to Xi's parallel campaign against expensive banquets and excessive gift-giving. This is no bad thing. Still, the leadership appears highly sensitive to any suggestion it is worsening the current slowdown.

Such is the sensitivity, this column has been told private sector economists, at foreign institutions, have been warned not to draw the parallel between corruption and slowing growth.

Even more sensitive is linking the two recent interest rate cuts to the corruption campaign. For those who do, there is the threat of regulatory problems on the mainland for their bank or broking house, at a later date.

Such threats are typical of how the Communist Party silences dissenting voices, even as it continues to draw attention to the issue itself.

Just in case the foreign media missed Xi's Saturday comments, the state media brought up the issue again on Monday when the China Daily used much of its editorial page to rubbish an article in the Washington Post.

The rebuttal, by two Chongqing academics, once again denied any connection between the corruption campaign and slowing growth. They said the slowdown was caused by economic restructuring, the tough external environment and higher wages at home.

These factors cannot be denied, but nor can the role of corruption, according to the Conference Board, an independent US think tank. It goes a step further by saying corruption is to blame for the slowdown in the first place - and only by fixing it will China avoid a "long soft fall".

"The root cause of China's economic slowdown is a productivity crisis," it said in a report released last year.

It puts "structural corruption" at the very heart of this "crisis" and says rent seeking and the need to meet growth targets have led to "the massive over-building of unproductive assets".

As the conference board sees it, corruption has distorted the efficient allocation of capital in the economy.

It says only through reform of the state-owned sector and its links to state-owned banks can China's growth be stabilised.


Fairfax Media Management Pty Limited

Document AFNR000020150312eb3d0001m

China’s Li Keqiang warns on growth
DOW JONES MARCH 16, 2015 10:13AM

China's lower growth future
China's Premier Li Keqiang answers question after the closing session of the National PeoChina's Premier Li Keqiang answers question after the closing session of the National People's Congress. Source: Getty Images

CHINA’S premier has warned that the world’s No. 2 economy faces “considerable” downward pressure and said that Beijing has the tools to spur growth if the slowdown hits employment.

At his annual news conference, Premier Li Keqiang said “we are prepared to step up efforts” to support the economy if a slowdown hits employment. China has “more tools in the toolbox” if that were to happen, he said.

Speaking for two hours before foreign and domestic media, Mr Li touched on a range of topics. He said China and the US have many common interests, despite tensions, and played down the idea of China threatening Washington, while he also said China supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine. He also called for stern punishment for major polluters and dismissed the idea that China is a source of global deflationary pressure.

He also addressed violence along the China-Myanmar border. On Friday four Chinese farmers were killed and another nine injured after a bomb was dropped on Chinese territory. China has blamed a Myanmar warplane, while the Myanmar government has blamed local rebels.

“We have the responsibility and the capacity to firmly safeguard stability” and will protect “lives and property” in the border area, Mr Li said.

On the economy, Mr Li said that China has room to take further action because it has refrained from massive stimulus measures in recent years, despite a slowdown in growth. He said any plans to turn to such measures would be hypothetical, but that policy makers “recognise that there is considerable downward pressure on China’s growth.”

China posted 7.4 per cent growth last year, its worst performance in nearly a quarter of a century. Earlier this month it set a target for 2015 at about 7 per cent amid indications of weak domestic demand and a still-sluggish global economy. It also set a target for creating at least 10 million urban jobs this year.

“It is true that we have adjusted downward somewhat our GDP target, but it will be by no means easy to meet that target,” he said. He cited the scale of China’s economy, adding that 7 per cent growth “is equivalent to the total size of a medium-sized country.”

Amid worries in a number of countries about deflationary pressure, economists have looked to China, which is suffering from industrial overcapacity and has seen consumer price growth weaken. But Mr Li said China isn’t in deflation. “China is not exporting deflation to the world, “ he said. “China has been on the receiving end of deflation.”

On China-US relations, Mr Li said Beijing and Washington are making progress on signing a long-awaited investment treaty, “opening up new dimensions for US-China ties.”

“Negotiations will take time,” he said, but progress on the talks sends a message that the two countries are on the path toward more-solid relations.

Mr Li also played down the idea that China’s economy is now bigger than the US by some measures. He cited China’s per-capita GDP, which is still behind 80 other countries. “China is still a developing country in every sense of the term,” he said.

On Ukraine, Mr Li said the turbulence in Ukraine is a hindrance to the global economic recovery. “We respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said and called on dialogue to solve problems.

But he didn’t mention Russia in his response, and said the background to the situation in Crimea was complex. China has grown increasingly close to Russia over the past year, even as Moscow’s relations with the West have soured.

On the environment, Mr Li said Beijing’s effort to fight pollution “still falls short of the expectations of the people.” He called for tougher penalties on polluters, saying Beijing needs blunt tools, “not a cotton swab.”

Earlier, Mr Li addressed China’s sluggish property market, which in the past has been a key driver of growth. China needs to encourage homebuying for personal use, he said, even as he forecast steady growth for China’s declining property market.

Mr Li said China needs to encourage its people to buy homes as residences and for upgrading their living conditions, but he didn’t give specific details about how that would be done.

Home sales have weakened in recent years amid overcapacity and slower economic growth. In the past, purchasing of homes for investment has driven price surges.

Mr Li nevertheless offered encouraging words for the real estate sector. “China’s housing demand is here to stay,” he said, adding that the government “hopes to see steady, sound growth.”

Dow Jones

China Property Sales Fall 16.3% in 2015 Despite Govt Support
Property sales in China have fallen 16.7 percent this year compared to the first two months of 2014, dashing developer hopes for a quick recovery to the nation’s housing slump.

The slide in home sales came despite a series of moves in recent months to increase China’s credit supply and lower the cost of home mortgages, and can be seen to increase the likelihood of China’s government taking further steps to prop up the real estate sector.

The downturn in consumer sentiment has clearly registered with the nation’s property developers, who cut back their land purchases by 31.7 percent in January and February, thus putting more pressure onto local governments who depend heavily on land sales for revenues.

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Something’s Kingkey About China’s Latest Real Estate Corruption Case
Investigations into corrupt real estate deals in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen seem to have spread to a second major developer today, as the company behind the city’s tallest tower is said to be under investigation.

Shenzhen Kingkey Group, which developed the 100-storey KK100 tower (formerly known as the Kingkey 100) is reported to be under investigation for illicit land deals with government cadres. One of the officials said to be involved is the former head of the city’s Longgang District who was implicated in the troubles of fellow Shenzhen developer Kaisa Group Holdings.

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A bit OT, but the reporter must have had a field day writing the latter article.. Something "king-key" about a female ceo whose English name is Baby and working with a company called Fantasia.. I thought I was reading off newnation china

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

(17-03-2015, 07:58 AM)thor666 Wrote: A bit OT, but the reporter must have had a field day writing the latter article.. Something "king-key" about a female ceo whose English name is Baby and working with a company called Fantasia.. I thought I was reading off newnation china

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

Glad you enjoy the entertaining article haha.

2月份全社会用电量现负增长 电力相对过剩
http://jingji.cntv.cn/2015/03/17/ARTI142...8612.shtml