Last week’s release of disappointing economic and trade data for July has, predictably, renewed calls for additional stimulus. In May, Beijing ramped up its support for the economy, and observers had expected activity to pick up by last month.
Why has the economy so far failed to respond? There are various reasons, but perhaps the most important is that the country is running out of money for stimulus.
China’s new yuan-denominated loans surged in June as the government moved to buoy the slowing economy, raising concerns that fast credit growth will push up inflation.
June’s new yuan-denominated loans rose by 285.9 billion yuan (about US$45 billion) year on year to 919.8 billion yuan (US$144 billion), the People’s Bank of China, or the central bank.
Due to a number of factors, including rising wages for Chinese workers, manufacturing jobs could be returning from China to the United States, according to recent reports.
Spanish officials warned Argentina on Friday that the country risks becoming “an international pariah” if it follows through on its threats to take control of Spanish-owned energy company Repsol’s majority stake in its YPF unit.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is demanding tougher anti-corruption efforts amid a huge political scandal over a now-suspended Politburo member whose wife has been named a suspect in the murder of a British businessman.
China’s imports of most commodities, including crude oil and copper, are set to slow in March from February, reflecting weaker economic activity as distortions caused by the Lunar New Year holiday dissipate, traders and analysts said on Monday.
Speculation that China’s weakest quarter of annual economic growth since the global financial crisis will trigger a flood of policy support to fight the downturn misses a crucial point - the taps are already turned on.
The annual rate of GDP growth in the first quarter slowed to 8.1 percent from 8.9 percent in the previous three months, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday, below the 8.3 percent consensus forecast of economists polled by Reuters.
Navy personnel and Philippine MPs at the tiny rock of Scarborough Shoal bearing Philippine flag in South China Sea in 1997.
The Philippines and China are in a diplomatic and military impasse in a new area of the West Philippine Sea as the newly bought warship BRP Gregorio del Pilar stands guard outside a lagoon of Scarborough Shoal where two Chinese maritime surveillance ships keep watch over at least eight Chinese fishing boats.
Even though the territorial disputes in the South China Sea is nothing new, the recent confrontations among China, the Philippines, and Vietnam have sparked global concerns. It is being feared that the region is becoming a new flashpoint with serious security consequences. Six countries have made territorial claims over the South China Sea or its two major archipelagos-Spratly and Paracel.1 Many of the so-called “islands” are merely rocky outcroppings or coral reefs that are underwater at high tide, but their strategic and economic importance reach far beyond their actual size. Some 25 percent of the world’s shipping passes through the waters of the South China Sea. Moreover, there is the possibility that the area contains huge amount of oil and gas resources. A Chinese report in 1989 estimated that the area contains more than 100 billion barrels of oil. Since the 1970s, the sovereign disputes over the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos have generated a number of armed conflicts in the South China Sea.
The European Union is seeking powers to block foreign companies from winning lucrative government contracts unless their home countries open their own public-sector deals to European firms.
The proposals unveiled Wednesday appear to be targeted mostly at China, whose companies have obtained public projects in Europe.
