Chinese leader Xi Jinping meets with US CEOs and academics at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 27, 2024. Huang Jingwen/Xinhua/AP
Published March 28, 2024
Foreign direct investment in China has slumped in recent months as a combination of slower growth, regulatory crackdowns, onerous national security legislation and questions about the country’s long-term prospects have shaken confidence in the world’s second biggest economy.
The group of CEOs included Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm (QCOM), Raj Subramaniam of FedEx (FDX) and Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group (BX).
Xi invited US businesses to “continue to invest in China” and pledged further reforms to open the country’s markets to foreign firms, according to a readout of the meeting published by the foreign ministry.
“China’s growth prospects are bright, and we have the confidence,” he said, adding that the country’s economy has not yet peaked.
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SOURCE: www.cnn.com
RELATED: China’s economy is not in a Great Decline but a Great Transition
Published March 27, 2024
China’s near-term challenges and long-term uncertainties are plentiful, but the widespread pessimism towards the Chinese economy and markets feels excessive. We think the country’s in a necessary transition rather than in any long-term decline. Understanding the challenges and timescale is key for investors
China’s economy has reached an important crossroads
China’s economy has reached an important crossroads after undergoing one of the most impressive growth miracles of modern history. In rapidly moving financial markets, participants are understandably focused on short-term trends and developments. But it’s crucial to sometimes take a step back and look at a longer time horizon when it comes to formulating a big-picture strategy, not least in terms of asset allocation.
The short-term challenges facing China are well documented and are discussed extensively; the real estate sector, weak confidence, and local government debt are the three major issues that usually first come to mind. These are serious concerns for the shorter-term outlook and markets often judge policy by whether there is tangible progress on these fronts.
The market has settled into a state of excessive pessimism
But we think the market has settled into a state of excessive pessimism. And that’s understandable given the numerous doom and gloom media articles on firms reducing their China market exposure or exiting altogether. However, it is important to look at how the economy arrived at the situation today and what needs to be done in the long term to ensure sustained growth.
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SOURCE: www.think.ing.com
RELATED: China’s Economic Collision Course
As Growth Slows, Beijing’s Moves Are Drawing a Global Backlash
Published March 27, 2024
China’s economy has barely grown in the past two years. The immediate causes, including a decline in property construction and ham-fisted “zero COVID” policies that tanked private-sector investment, are well known. But the roots of the stagnation are systemic, and firms and analysts inside China, as well as governments and businesses around the world, have waited with anticipation for Beijing to clarify its plans to put the country’s economy on a more stable track. Between 2010 and 2019—not long ago—China’s annual GDP growth averaged 7.7 percent, but today the basic policy reforms necessary to support even three or four percent growth are proving difficult for Beijing to achieve.
Domestic and foreign observers pinned their hopes on the biggest policy event on China’s calendar, the National People’s Congress (NPC), for signs of an overdue change in direction. China has run an annual trade surplus for more than two decades, but in 2022 and 2023, a slowdown in China’s domestic demand pushed the country’s exports to exceed its imports by a shocking $1.7 trillion. A year earlier, in 2021, President Xi Jinping had declared that China had become a “moderately prosperous society”—a reference to a concept defined more than two millennia ago in the Chinese poetry collection known as the Book of Songs. In modern economic terms, Xi was taking credit for China’s rise to middle-income status. This transition should come with a policy pivot. After over two decades of strong investment-led growth, China now needs consumption-led growth. Further investment will have diminishing returns unless China can consume more at home. Yet over the past two years, the opposite has happened. Unable to sell goods to domestic buyers, Chinese companies are exporting their excess production abroad.
