Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Lockdown may have been lifted, but shops, bars and restaurants remain empty in Beijing, showing struggle facing economic recovery
Controls have been returning in other parts of China, where cinemas and tourist attractions shut amid fears of new wave of infections
The nearly two month-long lockdown has changed the consumption behaviour of Chinese residents, many of whom have turned to home cooking to cut their spending. Photo: AFP
China’s urban lockdown may have eased, but deserted streets and stores in the capital Beijing this week suggest that for the services sector, the impact of the coronavirus outbreak could be deeper and longer than expected.
Many restaurants, cafes and pubs remained closed in the city, where vigilance remains high about a second wave of infections. Among those that were open, there were few customers to be seen.
The usually crowded Wangfujing shopping street was quiet on Wednesday, with just a few shoppers patronising what is usually the heartbeat of the city’s commerce and tourism. There were more staff than consumers at the Apple store, while everyone wore a mask. Shops along the pedestrianised zone closed their doors before sunset, but many did not open at all.
In a downtown food court, a handful of people dined during what would usually be the lunch rush hour, each restricted to their own small table to maintain social distancing, in great contrast with the usual frantic dash for seats.
Coronavirus: What impact will the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic have on you?
While China has largely stemmed the domestic spread of Covid-19, threats of imported cases, with the virus having infected over one million people worldwide, and asymptomatic carriers continue to hamper the recovery in China’s
A survey published on Friday showed that in March, sentiment among small service sector firms remained depressed. The Caixin / Markit services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) was 43.0 for last month, with a number below 50 meaning the sector is shrinking. “There are too few people now. We only sold about a hundred bowls of noodles, that was just half of our normal level,” said one Beijing street vendor, who had also cut many items from the menu due to insufficient demand.
A bookstore in the city centre held an official opening ceremony after a soft opening followed by a two and a half month-long forced shutdown, but received only four visitors on a morning, one of which was the South China Morning Post reporter. All four were required to go through a body temperature check and write down their personal contact details before entering.
Service sector workers said the situation was surreal and that they were worried that there was no end in sight.
“I have never seen KFC look like this,” said an employee of the fast food chain restaurant at Wangfujing, pointing to the virtually empty dining hall.
A grocer at a nearby food market continually shook her head when talking about the decline in customers, but said she felt lucky that she could come back to Beijing from her hometown before the 14-day mandatory quarantine requirement was imposed on February 14.
This situation is not restricted to Beijing. When the Chinese government reopened around 500 cinemas nationwide in March, each one attracted on average
Now, many places across China are reimposing controls amid fears of a new spike in infections, the same fear leading people to stay home instead of going to those venues which have reopened.
Shanghai has closed tourist attractions while Sichuan has again closed karaoke lounges. Cinemas have also been reclosed across the country.
President Xi Jinping said during a visit to Hangzhou last Sunday that China must remain alert. “If you want to watch a movie, rather than going to a cinema, you can watch it online,” Xi said.
Services account for 60 per cent of China’s economy and the majority of employment. The slowness of the sector’s recovery is placing huge pressure on the world’s second
at a time when manufacturers are seeing export orders nosedive.
Liang Zhonghua, chief macro analyst at Zhongtai Securities, a brokerage, said that China’s damaged consumption alone could drag economic growth down by 4.5 per cent in the second quarter.
“(Chinese) residents’ fear of the epidemic is not over,” he wrote in a note this week.
Beijing’s malls still empty after coronavirus lockdown lifted
In Beijing all travellers entering the city are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine, while mass gatherings are still forbidden.
The containment measures have stopped many migrant workers from getting back to
, if they still exist. Many local residents still choose to work from home, even though authorities had been trying to encourage people to go out and spend money.
On April 1, the traffic flow on Beijing’s subway system was 3.05 million passengers a day, less than a third of the level a year ago, according to the operator, while car traffic was still about 15 per cent less than it was last year, government data showed.
I will keep cooking for myself, even when everything goes back to normal, it is much healthier and cheaper – Beijing resident
The nearly two month-long lockdown has changed the consumption behaviour of Chinese residents, many of whom have turned to home cooking to cut their spending.
“I will keep cooking for myself, even when everything goes back to normal, it is much healthier and cheaper,” said a Beijing lawyer whose family name is Li.
The effect of this behavioural shift is borne out in the 17.9 per cent drop in retail sales in the capital over the first two months of the year, only slightly better than the nationwide drop of 20.5 per cent.
Beijing businesses have clubbed together to issue some 150 million yuan in
BEIJING/WUHAN, China (Reuters) – China on Saturday mourned the thousands of “martyrs” who have died in the new coronavirus outbreak, flying the national flag at half mast throughout the country and suspending all forms of entertainment.
The Chinese national flag flies at half-mast at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, as China holds a national mourning for those who died of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the Qingming tomb sweeping festival, April 4, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
The day of mourning coincided with the start of the annual Qingming tomb-sweeping festival, when millions of Chinese families pay respects to their ancestors.
At 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) Beijing time, the country observed three minutes of silence to mourn those who died, including frontline medical workers and doctors. Cars, trains and ships sounded their horns and air raid sirens wailed.
In Zhongnanhai, the seat of political power in Beijing, President Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders paid silent tribute in front of the national flag, with white flowers pinned to their chest as a mark of mourning, state media reported.
More than 3,300 people in mainland China have died in the epidemic, which first surfaced in the central province of Hubei late last year, according to statistics published by the National Health Commission.
In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and the epicentre of the outbreak, all traffic lights in urban areas turned red at 10 a.m. and all road traffic ceased for three minutes.
Some 2,567 people have died in Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million people located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze river. The Wuhan deaths account for more than 75% of the country’s fatalities.
Among those who died was Li Wenliang, a young doctor who tried to raise the alarm about the disease. Li was honoured by the Hubei government earlier this week, after initially being reprimanded by police in Wuhan for “spreading rumours”.
Gui Yihong, 27, who was among thousands of Wuhan locals who volunteered to deliver food supplies to hospitals during the city’s months-long lockdown, recalled the fear, frustration and pain at Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li worked.
“If you weren’t at the frontlines you wouldn’t be able to experience this,” said Gui, as he laid some flowers next to Wuhan’s 1954 flood memorial by the Yangtze.
“I had to (come) and bear witness. For the last 80 days we had fought between life and death, and finally gained victory. It was not easy at all to come by.”
While the worst was behind Wuhan, the virus has spread to all corners of the globe since January, sickening more than a million people, killing more than 55,000 and paralysing the world economy.
Wuhan banned all tomb-sweeping activities in its cemeteries until at least April 30, curtailing one of the most important dates in the traditional Chinese lunar new year calendar which usually sees millions of families travel to tend to their ancestral graves, offer flowers and burn incense.
They have also told residents, most stuck at home due to lockdown restrictions, to use online streaming services to watch cemetery staff carry out those tasks live.
ASYMPTOMATIC CASES
Online, celebrities including “X-Men: Days of Future Past” star Fan Bingbing swapped their glamorous social media profile pictures for sombre photos in grey or black, garnering millions of “likes” from fans.
Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent (0700.HK) suspended all online games on Saturday.
As of Friday, the total number of confirmed cases across the country stood at 81,639, including 19 new infections, the National Health Commission said.
Eighteen of the new cases involved travellers arriving from abroad. The remaining one new infection was a local case in Wuhan, a patient who was previously asymptomatic.
Asymptomatic people exhibit few signs of infection such as fevers or coughs, and are not included in the tally of confirmed cases by Chinese authorities until they do.
However, they are still infectious, and the government has warned of possible local transmissions if such asymptomatic cases are not properly monitored.
China reported 64 new asymptomatic cases as of Friday, including 26 travellers arriving in the country from overseas. That takes the total number of asymptomatic people currently under medical observation to 1,030, including 729 in Hubei.
BEIJING, March 27 (Xinhua) — As the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) makes social distancing and working from home the new normal, leaders of the Group of 20, home to almost two-thirds of the world’s population and about 86 percent of the gross world product, convened Thursday for a virtual summit that sent a clear message: We are in the same boat.
The G20 Extraordinary Virtual Leaders’ Summit on COVID-19 was the first of its kind in the history of G20, and also the first major multilateral event attended by President Xi Jinping since the outbreak of the COVID-19.
Speaking to his colleagues via video link from Beijing, Xi put forward four proposals to cope with a situation that is “disturbing and unsettling,” calling for an all-out global war against the COVID-19 outbreak and enhancing international macro-economic policy coordination to prevent a recession.
“At such a moment, it is imperative for the international community to strengthen confidence, act with unity and work together in a collective response,” Xi said. “We must comprehensively step up international cooperation and foster greater synergy so that humanity as one could win the battle against such a major infectious disease.”
In a demonstration of the need for greater global coordination and solidarity, the G20 members were joined by leaders from invited countries including hard-hit Spain as well as multiple international organizations including the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While previous G20 summits often discussed high-stake topics like economic recession and boosting development policy, Thursday’s emergency meeting came at a time when the world is grappling with a dicey pandemic and concerns are mounting over the “black swan” event that could derail the global economy.
As China’s epidemic prevention and control are continuously improving, and the trend of an accelerated restoration of normal production and life is being consolidated and expanded, his remarks at the G20 summit are timely and of critical importance for countries now fighting at the front lines of a battle to stem the pandemic and forestalling a recession.
UNITED WE STAND
The number of COVID-19 cases worldwide topped 462,684, with 20,834 deaths as of 10 a.m. Central European Time, Thursday, according to the data kept by the WHO. The economic toll is also climbing as more businesses and trade come to a grinding halt amid massive lockdowns.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is endangering countries rich and poor, large and small, strong and weak alike,” said Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and former vice minister of Commerce. “We are now at a critical juncture of fighting the pandemic and stabilizing the global economy, and the international community expects the G20 to play a leading role.”
The significance and urgency of Thursday’s meeting hark back to scenarios in the depth of the global financial crisis in 2008 when meetings of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors were raised to the level of heads of state and government for better crisis coordination. What’s different is that grave challenges facing the world today have led to warnings of a downturn even worse than in 2008.
“This pandemic will inevitably have an enormous impact on the economy,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said in a video clip posted on the website of the organization. “Recent projections predict an economic downturn and job losses that are worse than the global financial crisis a dozen years ago.”
To prevent the world economy from falling into recession, Xi said countries need to leverage and coordinate their macro policies to counteract the negative impact as the outbreak has disrupted production and demand across the globe.
“We need to implement strong and effective fiscal and monetary policies to keep our exchange rates basically stable. We need to better coordinate financial regulation to keep global financial markets stable. We need to jointly keep the global industrial and supply chains stable,” he told the summit in a speech titled “Working Together to Defeat the COVID-19 Outbreak.”
Xi’s remarks on fighting as one echoed. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said: “We project a contraction of global output in 2020, and recovery in 2021. How deep the contraction and how fast the recovery depends on the speed of containment of the pandemic and on how strong and coordinated our monetary and fiscal policy actions are.”
“We will get through this crisis together. Together we will lay the ground for a faster and stronger recovery,” she said in a statement released after the conference call.
The important lesson in international solidarity is often forgotten when things are going fine, William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
“The experience with the COVID-19 will hopefully lead to more collaborative efforts between countries and strengthen the notion of a community with a shared destiny,” he said.
As China is a key driver of global economic growth, its economic performance bears great significance on the outlook of global recovery. In a strong morale and practical boost, Xi reaffirmed China would actively contribute to the global war against COVID-19 and a stable world economy.
“Guided by the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, China will be more than ready to share its good practices, conduct joint research and development of drugs and vaccines, and provide assistance where it can to countries hit by the growing outbreak,” Xi said.
Xi said China will contribute to a stable world economy by continuing to advance reform and opening-up, widen market access, improve the business environment and expand imports and outbound investment, and called on all G20 members to take collective actions — cutting tariffs, removing barriers, and facilitating the unfettered flow of trade.
The country is beefing up wider opening-up to foreign investment. Revision of the negative list on foreign investment is underway as part of the plan to improve business environment and expand the catalog of industries where foreign investment is encouraged.
New editions of the list will probably be released in May, expanding market access of the tertiary sector, such as health care, aged service, finance, transportation, logistics, tourism, education and training and value-added services of telecommunications, said Zhang Fei with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.
Noting that a global solution is needed to address the global challenge brought about by the pandemic, Azevedo said cross-border trade and investment flows have a role to play in efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and will be vital for fostering a stronger recovery once the medical emergency subsides.
“No country is self-sufficient, no matter how powerful or advanced it may be. Trade is what allows for the efficient production and supply of basic goods and services, medical supplies and equipment, food and energy that we all need,” he said.
Company making front-runner appeals for people to take part in trial stage, which nine potential Chinese vaccines are set to enter in April
US trialling vaccine that copies virus’ genetic code, amid international search for a drug to help limit the outbreak’s human and economic impact
CanSino is recruiting healthy volunteers for a clinical trial of its vaccine candidate. Photo: Weibo
The race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine is on, with the United States already starting a clinical trial and China close behind.
On Tuesday, vaccine producer CanSino Biologics, in Tianjin in China’s northeast, said it was looking for volunteers to take part in a six-month clinical trial of a treatment it had developed jointly with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.
“The vaccine does not contain infectious substances, is highly safe and stable, and requires only one inoculation,” the Hubei Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its request for volunteers.
Its announcement came a day after the first participant began a phase I trial for an experimental vaccine funded by the US National Institutes of Health and developed by biotech startup Moderna.
Chinese scientists identify two major types of the new coronavirus in preliminary study
It uses messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology that copies the genetic code of the virus instead of the actual virus. To date, no mRNA vaccine has been approved for humans.
China’s own mRNA vaccine candidate, jointly developed by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Tongji University and Stermina in Shanghai, is undergoing animal trials and is expected to enter the clinical phrase in mid-April.
Developed by the CanSino and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, the vaccine is the front-runner of nine that China is developing. All are in the process of completing preclinical trial studies and will enter clinical trials in April, with some expected to advance faster than others, according to Wang Junzhi, a biological products quality control expert and academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
US Covid-19 testing accelerates as companies step in where government failed
18 Mar 2020
“China’s research and development of a vaccine for the coronavirus is, generally speaking, among the most advanced in the world,” Wang said at a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. “[We] will not be slower than other countries.”
Coronavirus: Scientists dismiss claim that humans engineered the deadly contagion
Hopes have been pinned on developing a vaccine, especially for vulnerable groups such as the elderly, in the face of an epidemic with no known cure that has brought the world to a partial standstill.
Scientists around the world are conducting experiments, and the US is reported to have tried to buy a Germany vaccine developer so that it would supply to the US only – with the German government reportedly offering its own financial incentives for the biopharmaceutical company concerned, CureVac, to stay in the country.
“A vaccine is the most effective medical means for epidemic prevention and control as it can effectively stop the spread of the virus,” Lei Chaozi, director of science and technology at China’s Ministry of Education, said.
“Vaccines also play an important part in … stabilising the economy and enabling the country to return to normal as work and production resume.”
Why did a ‘cured’ coronavirus patient die in China? His widow wants answers
7 Mar 2020
President Xi Jinping called for faster development of coronavirus vaccines and treatment drugs when he inspected the Academy of Military Medical Sciences two weeks ago.
About 1,000 Chinese scientists have been working on the push for vaccines, with nine vaccines developed through five different approaches, including an inactivated vaccine, a viral vector-based vaccine and a gene vaccine.
Wang said that the vaccines needed to satisfy strictly the relevant regulations and technical standards – as well as World Health Organisation requirements – before starting clinical trials.
The potential vaccine developed by CanSino and military researchers, led by virologist Chen Wei, is genetically engineered. “Spikes” on the surface of the coronavirus bind to human cells and enable the virus to invade the human cells, causing the sometimes fatal infection known as Covid-19. In theory, vaccines can rehearse such an attack and trigger the human body to be primed to respond to a real infection.
CanSino has submitted the pre-investigational new drug review application for the Ad5-nCoV vaccine to Chinese regulatory authorities, and is in the process of submitting the related technical documents.
According to the Hubei CDC, volunteers for the trial must be 18 to 60 years old with no history of coronavirus infection.
BEIJING (Reuters) – The global coronavirus pandemic could be over by June if countries mobilize to fight it, a senior Chinese medical adviser said on Thursday, as China declared the peak had passed there and new cases in Hubei fell to single digits for the first time.
Around two-thirds of global cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in China’s central Hubei province, where the virus first emerged in December. But in recent weeks the vast majority of new cases have been outside China.
Chinese authorities credit strict measures they have taken, including placing Hubei under near total lockdown, with preventing big outbreaks in other cities, and say other countries should learn from their efforts.
“Broadly speaking, the peak of the epidemic has passed for China,” said Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission. “The increase of new cases is falling.”
RELATED COVERAGE
China government spokesman says U.S. army might have brought virus to China
Shanghai says travelers from more countries to face quarantine
Zhong Nanshan, the government’s senior medical adviser, told reporters that as long as countries take the outbreak seriously and are prepared to take firm measures, it could be over worldwide in a matter of months.
“My advice is calling for all countries to follow WHO instructions and intervene on a national scale,” he said. “If all countries could get mobilized, it could be over by June.”
Speaking to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President Xi Jinping similarly expressed confidence, state television reported.
“After hard work, China has shown a trend of continuous improvement in epidemic prevention and control,” the report cited Xi as saying.
“I am confident that the Chinese people will be able to overcome this epidemic and achieve their intended economic and social development goals.”
Zhong, an 83-year-old epidemiologist renowned for helping combat the SARS outbreak in 2003, said viruses in the same family typically became less active in warm months.
“My estimate of June is based on scenarios that all countries take positive measures.”
Later on Thursday, Zhong held a teleconference with a group of U.S. medical experts, including from Harvard University, state television reported.
Zhong and his team shared their experiences of quickly testing and containing the virus, difficulties in treatment, and cooperation in clinical research, the report added.
The United States is now facing its own virus crisis as the number of infected people rises.
BUSINESSES REOPEN
With the marked slowdown of the spread of the virus in China, more businesses have reopened, with authorities cautiously easing strict containment measures.
Hubei province announced a further loosening of travel restrictions and will also allow some industries to resume production.
Hubei’s economy, driven by manufacturing and trade, including a sizable auto sector in the provincial capital, Wuhan, had been virtually shut down since Jan. 23.
While the virus is spreading quickly globally, its progress in China has slowed markedly in the past seven days. In all, 15 new cases were recorded in mainland China on Wednesday, down from 24 the day before. Seven of the new cases were outside Hubei, including six imported from abroad.
While only 85 of the cases in China have come from abroad, the rising number of such incidences has prompted authorities to shift their focus on containing the risk of imported cases.
The total number of cases recorded in mainland China was 80,793. As of Tuesday, 62,793 people had recovered and been discharged from hospital, or nearly 80% of the infections.
In Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, 34,094 patients had been discharged from hospitals, but over half were still under observation at so-called “recovery stops” – quarantine venues repurposed from hotels and student dormitories.
Hubei’s health authority said the post-discharge quarantine was a precautionary measure, after a few discharged patients tested positive again.
As of the end of Wednesday, the death toll in mainland China had reached 3,169, up by 11 from the previous day. Hubei accounted for 10 of the new deaths, including seven in Wuhan.
China is focusing on restarting factories and businesses hit by the containment policies. Factory activity plunged to its worst level on record in February, and while more businesses have reopened in recent weeks as containment measures have been eased, analysts do not expect activity to return to normal until April.
Airlines have been hit particularly hard. China’s airlines reported total losses of 20.96 billion yuan ($3 billion) in February. The total number of airline passengers fell 84.5% year-on-year last month, China’s aviation regulator said.
China is now making more than 100 million masks a day, up from 20 million before the coronavirus outbreak, and may start to export more to other countries
Mask shortages elsewhere once more raise the debate about an over-reliance on China, with critics pointing to a lack of US industrial policy
China was producing 116 million masks per day of February 29, including a mix of disposable and high-end masks like the American-designed N95 model worn by President Xi Jinping on his trip on Tuesday to Wuhan. Photo: Xinhua
The Liu family factory has been making diapers and baby products in the Chinese city of Quanzhou for over 10 years, but in February, for the first time, it started making face masks, as demand soared spectacularly due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The business – which employs 100 people in the Southeastern Fujian province – has added two production lines to make up to 200,000 masks a day.
And while the decision was primarily commercial, “encouragement” from the Chinese government – in the form of subsidies, lower taxes, interest-free loans, fast-track approvals for expansion and help alleviating labour shortages – made the decision an obvious one, said Mr Liu who preferred only to give his family name.
“The government is advocating an expansion in production,” Liu said. “With faster approvals, producers need to prioritise the government’s needs over exports.”
WHO declares coronavirus crisis a pandemic
The factory is one of thousands of refitted pop-ups around China making masks and other protective equipment for the first time, part of a massive industrial drive to respond to the spread of the coronavirus.
Before the outbreak, China already made about half the world’s supply of masks, at a rate of 20 million units a day. That rose to 116 million as of February 29, according to China’s state planning agency, a mix of disposable and high-end masks like the American-designed N95 model worn by President Xi Jinping on his trip on Tuesday to Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.
This exponential jump is the result of a wartime-like shift in industrial policy, with Beijing directing its powerful state-owned enterprises to lead the nationwide mask-making effort, and the country’s sprawling manufacturing engine following their lead.
For me, this is the big advantage of China, the speed Thomas Schmitz
“For me, this is the big advantage of China, the speed,” said Thomas Schmitz, president of the China branch of Austrian engineering giant Andritz, which has seen a big uptick in demand for its wet wipe-making machines in recent weeks, also due to the virus. “When you need to run, people know how to run, and this is something which has been lost in other countries since their industrial heydays.”
Chinese oil and gas major Sinopec upped production of mask raw materials such as polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride in January. This week, it set up two production lines in Beijing to produce melt-blown non-woven fabric, intended to make four tonnes of the fabric each day, which can then be used to produce 1.2 million N95 respirators or six million surgical masks a day.
The maker of China’s new J-20 stealth fighter jet, Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, repurposed part of its factory to design a mask production line, according to local media reports. The SichuanDaily said 258 of the company’s engineers spent three days fast-tracking development of an assembly line with more than 1,200 components.
Coronavirus: From mysterious origins to a global threat
More than 2,500 companies in China have reportedly started making masks, among them 700 technology companies including iPhone assembler Foxconn and smartphone makers Xiaomi and Oppo, in an extraordinary mobilisation of resources.
The result resembles “the war effort” in the middle of the last century in the United States and western Europe, but arguably no other nation could undergo such a transformation so quickly today.
It is a reminder of what can happen in a centrally-planned economy with a strong manufacturing base, but also brings into sharp focus some of the geopolitical issues which have characterised China’s at-times difficult relationship with the rest of the world, particularly the European Union and US, over the past couple of years.
China’s dominance in manufacturing has become all the more evident as the rest of the world scrambles to shore up their own dwindling medical supplies, leading many to wonder why the world is so dependent on it for vital supplies.
The lesson for Washington is not that we need to emulate the Chinese economic model, but rather that we need to better steward the industrial base in key sectors Rush Doshi
The Italian government, which is dealing with the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths after China, is to take shipment of 1,000 ventilators, 2 million masks, 100,000 respirators, 200,000 protective suits and 50,000 testing kits from China.
Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said after a phone call with Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, they had agreed the export deal in the same week that European neighbours France and Germany banned masks from being exported because of low domestic supplies.
The Italy export deal showed that “China is emerging as a global public goods provider as the US proves unable and unwilling to lead,” said Rush Doshi, the director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Washington-based Brookings Institute think tank.
“China’s ability to produce what is needed to fight coronavirus is not simply a product of its economic model – it’s also a product of its industrial capacity,” Doshi said. “The US once had this capacity too, but it has lost important parts of it. The lesson for Washington is not that we need to emulate the Chinese economic model, but rather that we need to better steward the industrial base in key sectors.”
The frustration is felt acutely by Michael Einhorn, president of medical equipment distributor Dealmed-Park Surgical in New York, who has been trying to source stock from China for weeks, “but cannot get straight answers” from vendors.
Einhorn said he placed an order with a private seller in China’s virus-stricken city last week, but that the goods had not been shipped.
“Everyone is running out here, people are panicking in hospitals and we want to be able to help our most important customers,” Einhorn said. “We are dealing with hospitals that do not have products, how in the United States of America in 2020 did this happen?”
With the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China falling daily, it is not inconceivable that the sort of export deal struck with Italian leaders becomes commonplace, although for now, it deal can be chalked up as a significant public relations coup for Beijing.
The World Medical Association is unable to specify how many masks are required to supply frontline medical staff in virus-hit areas, but said that “this crisis should be a wake up call for politicians and societies to make the necessary investment in emergency preparedness and to look into the vulnerability of our supply chains”.
Australian-listed manufacturer Eagle Health announced on Friday that it had installed production lines at its Xiamen factory in southern China to make 300 million masks a year and said it had already received orders from China and would be securing further larger orders internationally.
The group, which normally makes products including amino acids, protein supplements and lozenges in China, said it would prioritise meeting the large domestic demand, but was aware of an impending global shortage.
Eagle Health has already commenced production of its first order of 3.2 million medical masks for the Yiling Hospital Management Group in China, a process which will take 10 days. It has other smaller orders from Chinese government agencies and expects to receive more orders outside China.
The decision to make more masks came from increased demand. These are opportunities. The global demand for high quality masks will be significant Xu Gang
“The decision to make more masks came from increased demand. These are opportunities,” said chief executive Xu Gang. “The global demand for high quality masks will be significant. Imagine when the schools open. The situation will take some time to peak.”
Last week, the Australian Dental Association said supplies of masks at many practices were expected to run out within four weeks. The Australian government has since arranged a supply of 54 million masks for both the dental and medical industries.
At the same time, the US only has 1 per cent of the 3.5 billion masks it would need to counter a serious outbreak, Bloomberg reported.
While China has no quota on the volume of masks that had to be hived off for local consumption, the government has said domestic demand needs to be prioritised.
Businesses are free to export but overseas demand has yet to explode like it has in China, said Fujian factory owner Liu.
Wendy Min, sales director of Pluscare, a manufacturer based near the virus’ epicentre in Hubei province, said her company is making 200,000 masks per day, much of which are sold to the government, with exports still restricted by partial lockdown of workers and cargo transport.
“We previously exported to Europe, South America and other parts of Asia,” Min said. “But at the moment we can’t export. We are trying to discuss this with the government, but we cannot wait any more – we have to export soon.”
Min said that while she was receiving countless cold calls up until last week from people in China looking for masks, these have stopped, perhaps unsurprising given the abundance in supplies becoming available.
An influx of Chinese-made masks, though, is likely to be welcomed in other virus-stricken parts of the world.
Self-quarantine of all international travellers to Beijing as China fights import of coronavirus
Miguel Luiz Gricheno, CEO of Brazilian mask manufacturer Destra, said that his company is making 30,000 masks a day, but cannot meet local demand due to a lack of supplies, including the non-woven fabric from which masks are made.
“In disposable masks, most Brazilian companies are paralysed due to the lack of raw materials,” Gricheno said. “With the arrival of the coronavirus in Brazil, the demand has increased a lot but the main raw material comes from abroad.”
However, a short-term supply fix will not answer underlying questions about how so many countries found themselves in such dire straits,meaning the geopolitical fallout of the coronavirus will be extensive.
Decades of weak industrial policy helped elect US President Donald Trump, who said he would bring manufacturing jobs back to America at China’s expense. While he has waged a bruising two-year trade war with China in response, the current situation shows just how difficult it will be to change the global manufacturing processes, which are so heavily controlled by China.
One of the great flaws of globalisation is that everyone wanted things cheaper, but did you compromise your health care infrastructure in the process? Stephen Roach
“In the guise of trying to improve efficiency and create value for price-sensitive consumers, we’ve created a global production network that is very difficult to unwind,” said Stephen Roach, a professor of economics at Yale University and a veteran China watcher. “One of the great flaws of globalisation is that everyone wanted things cheaper, but did you compromise your health care infrastructure in the process.
Reuters reported that Trump is considering invoking the emergency provisions of the Defence Production Act, which would allow the government to instruct companies to alter production to help address the domestic shortage of medical supplies like masks. If a company is producing 20 per cent N95 masks and 80 per cent standard masks, the White House could order them to rejig the ratio, an unnamed official said.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the White House is preparing an executive order that would allow the government to buy medical supplies from overseas in the hope that it will incentivise companies to make them within the US.
But these changes still do not give Trump the sort of sweeping powers enjoyed by Chinese counterpart Xi.
“When you have a pluralistic, democratic situation that Trump is overseeing, it becomes more unwieldy” to take the steps necessary to address a crisis situation, said Harry Broadman, chair of the emerging markets practise at the Berkeley Research Group and a senior US government official in the 1980s and 1990s.
“That is why I think Trump looks at Xi with envy, because he doesn’t have to deal with a disparity of views or democratic interests,” Broadman said. “I think Trump is at heart a bilateral guy, as you saw with the phase one [US-China] trade deal and the state-to-state purchases. That is why he likes dealing with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and Xi, because each of them can move mountains. I think Trump is very envious of that ability.”
In response to the 2008 global financial crisis, China pumped a 4 trillion yuan (US$575 billion) into its economy but it led to a mountain of local government debt
Various early indicators suggest China’s economy will slow in the first quarter of 2020, with some suggestions it will suffer a first contraction since 1976
President Xi Jinping said China must accelerate construction of “new infrastructures such as 5G networks and data centres” on top of speeding up “key projects and major infrastructure construction” in response to the economic impact caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Xinhua
China should not try to bolster its coronavirus-hit economy by again resorting to a massive debt-fuelled fiscal and monetary stimulus programme, according to a group of government advisers.
Various early indicators suggest China’s economy will slow in the first quarter of 2020, with some even suggesting it will suffer a first contraction since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
This raises the question if China will miss its key 2020 growth target, with voices on both sides of the debate discussing what stimulus policies are needed to offset the deep impact of the coronavirus.
China is already leaning towards some additional stimulus, with Premier Li Keqiang ordering the central bank pump additional money into the banking system, while President Xi Jinping has announced the need for more spending on “new infrastructure”.
Are there other ways out for China except stimulus policies?Liu Shijin
“Are there other ways out for China except stimulus policies?” rhetorically asked Liu Shijin, who previously worked closely with Vice-Premier Liu He, the top economic aide to Xi, at the Development Research Centre, the think tank attached to the State Council.
“If it really works, why can’t Japan and the United States reach a 5 per cent growth rate?”
It is believed China will need to achieve an average 5.6 per cent growth in 2020 to achieve its goal of doubling the size of its economy from 2010, which is a key goal for
China’s economy grew by 6.1 per cent in 2019, and while it was the slowest in 29 years, the US economy only grew 2.3 per cent, with Japan’s estimated to grow by 0.9 per cent.
What is gross domestic product (GDP)?
Liu Shijin, who is now a deputy head of the China Development Research Foundation and a policy adviser to the People’s Bank of China, argued that a growth rate averaging 5 per cent over the next decade is sufficient for China to meet its development goals.
Growth in 2020, though, may well be below 5 per cent given that the impact of the coronavirus is “unprecedented” and larger than both severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003 and the 2008 global financial crisis.
Xi said earlier this month that China must accelerate construction of “new infrastructures such as 5G networks and data centres” on top of speeding up “key projects and major infrastructure construction already included in state plans” like additional high-speed railway lines in response to the economic impact caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
But as this will mainly rely on corporate and private investment, Liu Shijin feels it will be too small to engineer a major rebound in the growth rate.
When encountering challenges, we should first push forward new reform measures to unleash growth potential. Now is the right timeLiu Shijin
“It’s a different thing compared to real [government-led] economic stabilisation,” Liu Shijin told a web seminar hosted by Peking University’s National School of Development on Wednesday.
“When encountering challenges, we should first push forward new reform measures to unleash growth potential. Now is the right time.”
Instead, to support longer-term growth, China should put its efforts into the development of its “city clusters”, which could lead to higher spending on housing construction, urban infrastructure and manufacturing, added Liu Shijin, which would increase the growth rate by up to an additional percentage point over the next decade.
China has so far refrained from the massive stimulus programme it adopted in 2008 in response to the global financial crisis, which included a 4 trillion yuan (US$575 billion) plan that pumped cheap money into government-backed projects but also created a mountain of local government debt.
Trump bans travel from Europe to the US as coronavirus pandemic hits actor Tom Hanks and the NBA
Zhang Bin, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said infrastructure construction will remain an important part of any plan to support growth.
“If the funding [for the 4 trillion yuan stimulus] had come solely from treasury bonds or local government bonds [rather than risky lending], there wouldn’t be so much shadow banking, unmanageable credit expansion, high leverage, implicit liabilities or financial risks,” he said.
“If the balance sheets of corporations, households and local governments can’t be repaired, it might lead to insufficient demand and a decline into a vicious [downward] cycle.”
Zhang, like Liu Shijin, is a key member of the China Finance 40 Forum, a group of state economists who advocate more structural reforms to support the Chinese economy. In particular, Zhang has set sights on reforms that would boost consumption, which accounted for 58 per cent of Chinese growth last year.
“The biggest weak link of the Chinese economy is that 200 to 300 million migrant workers can’t [legally] settle in big cities,” he said. “Only if they are able to settle in the city that China can be called a real well-off society. It will also boost the economy, lift demand for manufactured goods and unleashed consumption potential.”
Currently, most large Chinese cities only provide social services including health care and schooling to residents who have a legal permit, or hukou. Most migrant workers who come to the big cities for jobs are blocked from obtaining a hukou, meaning they have to travel back to their rural hometowns to have access to basic social services, so often do not settle in their adopted city.
In response to this idea, Xu Yuan, a professor at Peking University, called for the government to build 10 million affordable housing units annually to accommodate new urban citizens, which would address short-term economic pain and serve the nation’s long-term development.
China will release its annual growth target as well as other key goals, including the fiscal deficit ratio and local bond quota, at the National People’s Congress, although the annual parliamentary convention, previously scheduled for March 5, has been postponed, with a new date yet to be announced.
Plunges in official and private sector purchasing managers’ indices amid the coronavirus outbreak prompted sharp revisions of economic forecasts
Analysts expect China to enact additional fiscal and monetary stimulus but stop short of massive support enacted after the global financial crisis in 2008
Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, the once unthinkable scenario in which China’s economy posts a zero growth rate or even an absolute contraction compared to the previous quarter is now seen as a real possibility. Photo: AP
The odds are rising that China will report a sharp deceleration in growth – or even a contraction in the first quarter as a result of the impact of the coronavirus epidemic.
The outbreak has paralysed the country’s manufacturing and service sectors, putting Beijing in the difficult position of either forgoing its economic growth goal for 2020 or returning to its old playbook of massive debt-fuelled economic stimulus to support growth.
The larger-than-expected deterioration in the official and private sector purchasing managers’ indices for both the manufacturing and services sectors to all-time lows in February – the first available economic indicators showing the extent of the economic damage done by the epidemic – has prompted economists to slash their Chinese growth forecasts.
Several are even expecting the once unthinkable scenario in which China’s economy posts a zero growth rate or even an absolute contraction compared to the previous quarter, even though the weakness is likely to be only short-lived.
A contraction in first quarter growth would be the first since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
A report published by the East Asian Institute at the National University Singapore noted that China could report a contraction of 6.3 per cent in the first quarter from the first quarter of 2019, while the growth rate for 2020 is set to fall well short of the 5.6 per cent needed by Beijing to meet its economic goal.
If China still wants to achieve an average 5.6 per cent growth for 2020, it would have to engineer a growth rate of as high as 12.7 per cent in the second half of the year, according to the report by Bert Hofman, Sarah Tong and Li Yao.
“The question is whether this is feasible and whether the consequences in terms of increased debt and potentially less productive investment are worth the price,” according to the report.
What is gross domestic product (GDP)?
China’s headline year-over-year gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate has hovering in a narrow range between 6 per cent and 7 per cent for 18 consecutive quarters until the end of 2019, but a sharp dip in the otherwise steady growth trajectory in the world’s second largest economy would send fresh warning signs about the risks of relying excessively on China as a production base and consumption market, particularly for large multinationals from Hyundai to Apple.
An official recognition of an economic contraction, even a brief one, would break a long tradition of China reporting consistent growth to prove the Communist Party’s ability to manage the economy and to rally the whole country to achieve one historical milestone after another.
insisted last week that China would realise the vision of building up a “comprehensively well-off” society by 2020, an inheritance from China’s former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and a major gauge of progress to realise Xi’s grand “Chinese dream” by the middle of the century.
One key but loosely defined parameter for achieving a “comprehensively well-off” society is that the size of the economy at the end of this year will be double that of 2010.
To achieve that, economists calculate that China must achieve a 5.6 per cent growth this year, although Beijing has been vague about the specific target, although this now seems out of reach barring massive stimulus or a redefinition of the goal.
Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, said his group has cut its forecast for the year-on-year growth rate to 2.3 per cent for the first quarter and 4.8 per cent for 2020 overall, adding that it would be next to impossible for China to make up the lost ground during the reminder of the year given the impact of the coronavirus
on the rest of the world, particularly South Korea, Japan and Italy, who are all major trading partners.
It will be extremely difficult, to say the least, to meet the annual growth targets for 2020 set previously. It would require massive, unreasonable amounts of stimulus, if it is at all possible, given the headwinds Louis Kuijs
“It will be extremely difficult, to say the least, to meet the annual growth targets for 2020 set previously. It would require massive, unreasonable amounts of stimulus, if it is at all possible, given the headwinds,” Kuijs said.
Instead, it would “make much more sense” for the Chinese leadership to play down the need to literally meet the previously set economic target,” he added.
Beijing’s social and economic development targets for this year have not yet been made public, even though Xi has pledged that the government would still achieve them despite the challenge posed by the virus outbreak.
The full-year targets covering growth, employment and inflation are usually released at the National People’s Congress, the ceremonial gathering of China’s legislature in early March, but this key annual event has been postponed due to the threat of the coronavirus, which has infected over 80,000 people and killed more than 2,900 in the country as of Tuesday.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics is due to publish first quarter GDP growth data in mid-April, with combined industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment data for January and February due next week.
They will offer a clearer picture of how much the coronavirus epidemic has damaged China’s growth in the first two months of this quarter, although the damage it has caused in China and the rest of the world is hard to measure because the epidemic is still evolving.
Production among manufacturing companies across China, except in the virus epicentre of Wuhan, Hubei province, have been gradually returned to normal, with firms that have close ties to local governments and access to financial resources resuming production faster than the much larger number of small businesses.
Chinese diaspora fights coronavirus discrimination in the US
The latest data from China’s industry ministry showed that only 32.8 per cent of
had restarted production as of the middle of last week, an increase of just 3.2 percentage points from three days earlier. But even among the larger enterprises the government is trying to help, many are not running at full capacity due to disrupted logistics that have impeded the delivery of raw materials to factories and finished products to customers.
A shortage of workers due to travel barriers erected to stem the spread of the virus, or local regulations that prevent factories from resuming full operations until they have implemented sufficient health safeguards, are also hampering efforts.
Foxconn, which assembles most of Apple’s iPhones in China, said normal production is not expected to resume until the end of March.
China, though, has limited its economic aide policies to “targeted” fiscal and monetary moves, avoiding the massive stimulus it undertook in 2008 in response to the global financial crisis that led to the negative side-effects of high debt and unproductive investments.
[China] will be cautious about the scale of any intervention. The size of the stimulus will likely depend on how quickly economic activity recovers on its own Andy Rothman
Andy Rothman, a San Francisco-based strategist for investment fund Matthews Asia and a long-time watcher of the Chinese economy, said China will report a sharp fall in economic activity in the first quarter and that it “is prepared to implement a stimulus”.
“But [China] will be cautious about the scale of any intervention. The size of the stimulus
will likely depend on how quickly economic activity recovers on its own,” Rothman said.
China’s ruling Communist Party has never reported a contraction in economic growth since the country started the reform and opening up movement in 1978.
Even in 1990, when China was hit by Western sanctions following the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement, the country still reported an annual growth of 3.8 per cent.
The larger-than-expected fiscal and monetary policy stimulus will help make meeting the targets for 2020 less challengingLiu Li-Gang
In the history of quarterly GDP growth rates – China started to report such data in 1994 going back to 1992 – the lowest growth rate on record of 6.0 per cent was in the third and fourth quarters of 2019.
The most recent year that China admitted to an economic contraction was 1976, the final year of the Culture Revolution and the year when chairman Mao Zedong died.
Liu Li-Gang, the chief China economist for Citigroup Global Markets Asia in Hong Kong, said Beijing has the policy reserves to keep economic growth on track, including increasing the fiscal deficit and loosening monetary policy.
“The lower GDP growth [in the first quarter] means that larger fiscal and monetary policy easing will be needed,” Liu said. “The larger-than-expected fiscal and monetary policy stimulus will help make meeting the targets for 2020 less challenging.”
BEIJING/SEOUL (Reuters) – Italy, South Korea and Iran reported sharp rises in coronavirus infections on Monday, triggering concern from the World Health Organization (WHO), but China relaxed some curbs on movement, including in Beijing, as the rate of new infections there eased.
The virus has put Chinese cities into lockdown, disrupted air traffic to the workshop of the world and blocked global supply chains for everything from cars and car parts to smartphones.
The surge of cases outside mainland China triggered steep falls in global share markets and Wall Street stock futures as investors fled to safe havens. Gold soared to a seven-year high, oil tumbled nearly 4% and the Korean won KRW= fell to its lowest level since August.[MKTS/GLOB]
But U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the impact on the global economy or supply chains, saying it was simply too soon to know.
RELATED COVERAGE
Ireland cautions against travel to coronavirus-hit areas of Italy
France blocks passengers on board bus from Italy after one falls ill
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it no longer had a process for declaring a pandemic, but that the coronavirus outbreak remained an international emergency.
“We are specially concerned about the rapid increase in cases in … Iran, Italy and the Republic of Korea,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Sweden via video link from Geneva.
South Korea reported 231 new cases, taking its total to 833. Many are in its fourth-largest city, Daegu, which became more isolated with Asiana Airlines (020560.KS) and Korean Air (003490.KS) suspending flights there until next month.
Iran, which announced its first two cases last Wednesday, said it had confirmed 43 cases and eight deaths. Most of the infections were in the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Bahrain and Iraq reported their first cases and Kuwait reported three cases involving people who had been in Iran.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan imposed restrictions on travel and immigration from Iran. Afghanistan also reported its first case, officials said.
The WHO has been saying for weeks that it dreads the disease reaching countries with weak health systems.
Europe’s biggest outbreak is in Italy, with some 150 infections – compared with just three before Friday – and a fifth death.
‘SEVERE AND COMPLEX’
Scientists around the world are scrambling to analyze the virus, but a vaccine is probably more than a year away.
“Worryingly, it seems that the virus can pass from person to person without symptoms, making it extremely difficult to track, regardless of what health authorities do,” said Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading in Britain.
China postponed the annual meeting of its parliament in Beijing.
But there was a measure of relief for the world’s second-largest economy as more than 20 province-level jurisdictions, including Beijing and Shanghai, reported zero new infections, the best showing since the outbreak began.
President Xi Jinping urged businesses to get back to work, though he said the epidemic was still “severe and complex, and prevention and control work is in the most difficult and critical stage”.
Excluding the central Hubei province, center of the outbreak, mainland China reported 11 new cases, the lowest since the national health authority started publishing nationwide daily figures on Jan. 20.
The coronavirus has infected nearly 77,000 people and killed more than 2,500 in China, most in Hubei.
Overall, China reported 409 new cases on the mainland, down from 648 a day earlier, taking the total number of infections to 77,150 cases as of Feb. 23. The death toll rose by 150 to 2,592.
Outside mainland China, the outbreak has spread to about 29 countries and territories, with a death toll of about two dozen, according to a Reuters tally.
Xi said on Sunday the outbreak would have a relatively big, but short-term, impact on the economy and the government would step up policy adjustments to help cushion the blow.
Mnuchin, speaking to Reuters in the Saudi city of Riyadh, said he did not expect the coronavirus to have a material impact on the Phase 1 U.S.-China trade deal.
“Obviously that could change as the situation develops,” he added.
In northern Italy, authorities sealed off the worst-affected towns and banned public gatherings across a wide area, halting the carnival in Venice, where there were two cases.
Austria briefly suspended train services over the Alps from Italy after two travelers coming from Italy showed symptoms of fever.
Both tested negative for the new coronavirus but Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said a task force would meet on Monday to discuss whether to introduce border controls.
Japan had 773 cases as of late Sunday, mostly on a cruise ship quarantined near Tokyo. A third passenger, a Japanese man in his 80s, died on Sunday.
In South Korea, authorities reported a seventh death and dozens more cases on Monday. Of the new cases, 115 were linked to a church in the city of Daegu.
Drone footage showed what appeared to be hundreds of people queuing in a neat line outside a Daegu supermarket under the winter sunshine to buy face masks. ( tmsnrt.rs/37WP6lA )
China was widely expected to announce a gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for 2020 of ‘around 6 per cent’ following 6.1 per cent growth in 2019
Zhang Yansheng, who is an adviser to China’s economic policymakers, says ‘there will definitely be adjustments’
(190305) — BEIJING, March 5, 2019 (Xinhua) — Xi Jinping (C, front), Li Keqiang (3rd R, front), Wang Yang (3rd L, front), Wang Huning (2nd R, front), Zhao Leji (2nd L, front), Han Zheng (1st R, front) and Wang Qishan (1st L, front) attend the opening meeting of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)
China may revise down its annual economic growth target for 2020 in response to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, but will still not give up the overall target of maintaining economic growth “in a reasonable range”, according to a Chinese government researcher.
The Chinese government has never officially published its goal for 2020, but it is widely expected that the specific gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for 2020
would be “around 6 per cent”, marking a potential slight slowdown from 6.1 per cent growth in 2019 but enough to achieve Beijing’s grand goal of doubling the size of its economy in 2020 from 2010.
China’s 2020 growth target was originally to be released during Premier Li Keqiang’s government work report at the National People’s Congress, but the March 5 annual parliamentary meeting is set to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“There will definitely be adjustments. For the central government, it hasn’t defined what the ‘reasonable range’ should be after the outbreak of coronavirus. People are still watching how the outbreak will develop and influence the economy,” Zhang Yansheng, the chief research fellow at the Beijing-based think tank, the China Centre for
International Economic Exchanges, told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday.
As for the final GDP target figure, we have to be true to facts. The GDP target was not a compulsory requirement but a soft forecast figureZhang Yansheng
“As for the final GDP target figure, we have to be true to facts. The GDP target was not a compulsory requirement but a soft forecast figure – strictly speaking, a forecast figure could be revised three or four times in a year.”
Zhang, though, referenced the fact that 29 of China provincial-level regions, out of a total of 31, had published their 2020 economic growth targets at the Central Economic Work Conference in December.
“The direction and the goals are clear. It’s not the case that people have not known what they should do this year,” added Zhang, who is an adviser to China’s economic policymakers.
has repeatedly said over the last two weeks that China will still strive to achieve its economic and social development goals for 2020 despite the outbreak, which has claimed over 1,800 lives and infected over 70,000 people, and remain on course to build the country into a “comprehensively well-off society”.
China to postpone the year’s biggest political gathering amid coronavirus outbreak
One key aspect of that vision is that China will double the size of its GDP in 2020 from 2010, which would require a minimum 5.6 per cent growth rate in 2020, although Beijing has never clearly defined the full details of the goal.
On Tuesday, Ren Hongbin, vice-chairman of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, said that the annual production goals and reform tasks set earlier in the year for state-owned enterprises would also not change despite the outbreak.
“The impact of the epidemic is temporary and phased, will not change the long-term positive fundamentals of the Chinese economy,” he said.
We should neither view 6 per cent as a red line nor take doubling the GDP size as a bottom line Song Xiaowu
Before the country fell into an economic standstill around the extended Lunar New Year holiday as the virus spread from the city of Wuhan, economists and analysts have been engaged in a heated debate over whether China needs to keep its growth rate above 6 per cent in 2020.
Song Xiaowu, former president of the China Society of Economic Reform, a state-backed think tank, said at a forum on Saturday that China’s GDP growth rate could drop to 3 per cent in the first quarter and 5 per cent for the whole of 2020.
“We should neither view 6 per cent as a red line nor take doubling the GDP size as a bottom line,” said Song, in a speech published by the China Development Research Foundation, who organised the forum.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 