China's "Real" GDP Growth Could Be As Low As 3.8%

Rowdy

Co ja kurwa czytam!
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according to the very data points which Premier Li Keqiang himself prefers to examine for an indication of where the economy stands (electricity consumption, rail freight volume, and credit growth), China's GDP growth is likely running far below the reported 7% figure. Here's the visual:



Since then, the country has turned in a rather abysmal spate of data including a 15% decline in exports, the lowest Y/Y industrial production growth since 2008, astonishingly low rail freight volumes, and, at the aggregate level, the worst GDP growth in six years.





Of course the reality of the situation is likely far worse as demand for steel (and by extension, iron ore) collapses on the back of Beijing's attempt to transition the country towards a more service-based economy.




Meanwhile, the "war on pollution" could hit industrial production hard going forward causing still more pain even as government options to fight the downturn are limited by a reluctance to devalue the yuan which, thanks to a strong dollar and unprecedented stimulus in Japan and Europe, has seen double-digit REER appreciation over the past year.



from a GDP perspective it means that no one really knows what the real figures are, as a sharply decelerating economy makes the official numbers even more opaque than they were in the first place. Here's WSJ with more:

When China released its tabulation of first-quarter growth earlier this month, the 7% figure—the worst in six years—stirred fears of a deepening slowdown.

It also raised fresh doubt about the trustworthiness of China's own statistics.
Efforts to discern China's actual growth rate have kept economists pinned to their calculators for years, and for good reason.

For one, the figures are suspiciously smooth, with none of the sharp gyrations seen in the U.S. or other economies. The methodology often appears inconsistent or contradictory. Also, no one knows how China accounts for inflation when tabulating its gross domestic product"¦

Then there are the many ways China's GDP figures appear to clash with other data points considered more difficult to manipulate. Economists point to the discrepancy between headline GDP growth and industrial production, often seen as a proxy for growth, which grew by 5.6% year to year in March—its lowest level since late 2008.

How the agency obtains GDP figures is "anybody's guess," said Hong Kong University of Science and Technology economics professor Carsten Holz, author of a paper on the quality of China's GDP statistics, citing what he calls an "atrocious lack of transparency."


Suspicion centers on two major issues: How willful is the fudging, and does China have a second set of books so leaders know what's "really" going on?
By just how much are the numbers overstated? As indicated, no one really knows, but here are some guesses as to what the "real" data might look like:



Credits: Tyler Durden @ZH

@maomao @Rashna @Mad Indian @roma @Tshering22 @roma @Sakal Gharelu Ustad @Khagesh and @Ray ...
 
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roma

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if they stall on their grandissimo plans to give
packland this that an the other

- if they begin to stall on their 64 billion dollar plans to
packland, ......

then we shall know for sure
 

sgarg

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Do not be happy with China slow down as it is a general phenomenon affecting the entire Asia including India.
Growth cannot happen at a constant rate. The investment is cyclic. The world is entering into a phase of low productivity growth.
 

sgarg

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Pakistan is very happy with free JF-17 fighters and other goodies from China. I doubt big infrastructure is really such a big deal.
India should be very careful with the situation in Pakistan. The jehadis are a real threat to India. This fact should not be forgotten.
 

sorcerer

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China’s Mounting Fiscal Problems


In recent months, China’s fiscal revenue has grown more slowly than has fiscal spending. Central and local governments’ fiscal revenues increased about 8 percent year on year in April, while national fiscal spending rose by 33 percent. Fiscal spending the first quarter of 2015 measured at 7 percent, the lowest rate of growth since 2009. The divergence between revenues and spending has resulted from a slowdown in growth, as well as from inefficiencies faced by local governments. Now, the Ministry of Finance and State Council have allowed for local governments to once again tap local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) for funds. While this may alleviate the fiscal spending slowdown, in the long run, this may result in a surge in non-performing loans that will act as a drag on future growth.

The economic slowdown has been in place for almost a year now. Growth in property investment and in industrial output continues to be rather sluggish, at 6 percent and 5.9 percent year on year, respectively in April. Loose monetary policy has been unable to boost spending. As economic activity dwindles, tax revenues have fallen. Yet the pressures to spend have only risen, as the government fills in the spending gap.

Local governments have faced mounting debt due to excessive spending on infrastructure and other projects requiring fixed asset investment. They have been ordered to speed up fiscal reforms by the Ministry of Finance. To assist local governments in reducing high levels of debt, the People’s Bank of China has asked banks to replace legacy debt with local government bonds, and permitted banks to use local government bonds as collateral for central bank loans. Banks are required to accept a minimum amount of bond placements.

What is more, local government financing vehicles, which had generated the excess debt in the first place, have been allowed to again act as borrowers for local governments. Banks are supposed to lend to local government financing vehicles in particular for agriculture, affordable housing, and urban rail projects.

The latter has been greeted with shock and concern, since local government financing vehicles racked up trillions of RMB in debt through the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014. Local government financing vehicles are the entities responsible for building the now-infamous ghost towns and other unproductive fixed investment projects. Curbing their behavior, and in particular allowing local governments to roll over debt into bonds, with an admonishment to reform fiscal spending, appeared to address the problem of debt accumulation. The recent moves by the State Council now likely reverse that correction.

One reason that the leadership is in such a bind with local governments is that fiscal imbalances between the central and local governments have still not been corrected. Local governments have been desperate for sufficient revenue to cover their massive expenditures on social services and infrastructure and continue to face no reprieve. The recent fiscal reform appears to have even skewed revenues a bit more in favor of Beijing, as service enterprises will switch from paying the business tax, which generally goes to local governments, to the VAT tax, which is transferred to the central government.

Another reason why local governments were allowed to use LGFVs is because the attempt to expand the municipal bond markets was insufficient. Local governments rolled out 400 billion RMB in 2014, which proved insufficient to finance local government projects. Land sales have also slowed, resulting in smaller revenue intake.

China needs additional fiscal reform, particularly with redistribution from central to local coffers, but this is unlikely to happen as both central and local government are pressed for funds to stimulate growth and implement reforms. Certainly the leadership has a challenging road ahead. The reversal on local government debt channels is just one harbinger of obstacles to come.


http://thediplomat.com/2015/05/chinas-mounting-fiscal-problems/
 

Armand2REP

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Once all the losses are calculated, China has been in recession at least 3 years. They have admitted over $10 trillion in bad loans since 2009, just amortize it since that time.
 

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