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30/01/2016

China set to participate in India’s smart city mission starting from Solapur – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Solapur, which bore witness to Sino-Indian friendship in history, will soon see a new chapter of cooperation between both countries as China will get actively involved in the city’s smart city mission.

From January 27 to 28, a group of Chinese delegates led by Chinese Consul General Zheng Xiyuan, including representatives from two Chinese high-tech companies, paid a visit to this city.

They saw different projects including sewage treatment plants, textile mills, and sugar mills, and held meetings with local officials and entrepreneurs, exchanging ideas on the smart city planning and progress of Solapur and sharing experiences of both sides in sewage treatment.

The Chinese delegates received warm welcome from the Solapur people. Officials of Solapur showed great interest in the technology of the Chinese companies, and invited them to participate in the sewage treatment projects.

Jiang Konghua, marketing director of Guangdong Sino-Israeli Water Treatment Innovative Industrial Park Co., said he is determined to conduct a comprehensive survey based on the projects he has seen in Solapur, and find the best solution for the development of this city.

Solapur is a city located in the southeastern region of Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the hometown of Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis, who fought with the Chinese people in WWII, and died in China.

On January 28, Solapur is declared as among the first group of twenty Indian cities to receive funds from the central government to start the smart city mission.

Ever since Narendra Modi took office as prime minister of India and proposed the smart city mission, the enlisted Indian cities have invited various countries to join their mission, including France, Germany, Sweden and the United States.

At the end of last year, Zhu Xiaodan, governor of China’s Guangdong Province, led a group of delegates to visit Maharashtra. During Zhu’s meeting with Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra, they both agreed on the cooperation in the smart city mission, which led to this visit to Solapur.

Source: China set to participate in India’s smart city mission starting from Solapur – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Diplomacy, Economics, GeoPolitics, India alert, Politics | 1 Comment »

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01/11/2015

China Pessimism Is Overblown, IMF Says, Citing Booming Services Sector – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Recent Chinese economic data is stoking fear the world’s second largest economy is decelerating at pace that could pull the global economy into a recession. But the International Monetary Fund’s top Asia economist, Changyong Rhee, says such pessimism may be unwarranted.

A booming services sector—such as shipping and retail—is offsetting the collapse in manufacturing, he argues. Advertisement “We don’t think there’s enough evidence based on the manufacturing sector that there will be a hard landing,” Mr. Rhee said in an interview. “They definitely have a manufacturing slowdown, an overcapacity problem. But other parts of China are actually growing faster.” If Beijing relies too much on monetary policy to stimulate growth, it could fuel China’s economic problems rather than fix them, the IMF official cautioned. His warning came as the People’s Bank of China on Friday cut interest rates again in a bid to revive growth.

Old ways of measuring China’s economy—such as looking at electricity consumption—are outdated because they don’t accurately reflect the changing nature of growth, Mr. Rhee said. Services now account for more than 50% of the country’s economy and there is a good chance their contributions are being underestimated, he said. On first glance, China’s trade data appears to support worries about the economy. But digging a little deeper into the numbers may actually show the country’s move towards a growth model more reliant on consumer demand is already bearing fruit.

Although the value of imports has fallen, volumes tell a different story. By adjusting for the fall in commodity prices and the appreciation in the yuan, the IMF calculates imports actually grew in July by 2%. And while the amount of goods imported has declined, imports of services are in double digits.

China’s real-estate sector has also fomented concerns. But Mr. Rhee said there are signs property prices are stabilizing. That is not to say the IMF believes there is no cause for apprehension. Beijing fueled its stellar growth rate over the last two decades through cheap credit. Souring global growth prospects revealed a country vastly overinvested in manufacturing capacity, particularly by state-owned enterprises. The IMF estimates overinvestment totals nearly 25% of the country’s growth domestic product. That means government-owned firms will struggle to pay their loans on mountains of credit. “If they mismanage the financial market, then they could have a hard landing,” Mr. Rhee said.

Beijing is facing a daunting task. Winding down the amount of credit in the system too quickly could stall growth. But failure to cut corporate debt levels and deal with bad loans quickly could create a bigger credit crisis over the next couple of years. “One question is whether China can manage this transition with the current governance system,” the senior IMF official said. “That is a critical issue.” Beijing will need to ensure government agencies take greater responsibility for their respective areas of oversight and state-owned companies will need to have stronger budget constraints, he said. China’s recent market turmoil revealed a weak regulatory structure. And overhauling a political system that relied on state-owned firms to boost growth and enrich regions is also expected to be a challenge.

That’s why, even though the IMF is backing more stimulus by Beijing to prevent too much deceleration in the economy, fund officials are concerned the government may depend too much on the old system of juicing the economy through credit. Counting on monetary policy, rather than using the budget to stimulate the economy, could exacerbate the problem of overcapacity.

“If they rely on monetary policy too much, then they would continue the classic credit expansion,” Mr. Rhee said. Besides fueling bad investments by state-owned enterprises, it could also “drag on necessary structural and governance reforms.”

Source: China Pessimism Is Overblown, IMF Says, Citing Booming Services Sector – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Posted in China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

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05/09/2015

What if the China Panic Is All Wrong? – China Real Time Report – WSJ

China’s stock-market routs and economic deceleration are widely cited as the major trigger for the latest round of global market volatility. But what if the dominant narrative about China—that the world’s No. 2 economy is on the verge of falling off a cliff—is wrong?

It would mean the global market turmoil hitting equities, commodities and currencies is an overreaction. “We may have seen overshooting,” said Hung Tran, executive managing director of global capital markets at the Institute of International Finance, an industry group representing around 500 of the world’s largest banks, funds and other financial institutions. Even the head of the International Monetary Fund indicated as much earlier this week.

One of the chief problems is that it’s difficult to gauge China’s black-box economy. The country’s true growth is a guessing game given a number of statistical factors. That’s why growth forecasts show a range spanning several percentage points. Lombard Street Research, for example, estimates the economy will only expand by 3.7% this year, nearly half Beijing’s official growth forecast. Even if China’s economy is healthier than many now fear, uncertainty is oxygen for market volatility.

More clarity from Beijing about growth prospects and crisis-management plans would likely prove fruitful. That’s why the U.S. plans to press Chinese officials for greater details on their policy plans at a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 largest economies late this week. Here are some of the arguments that might moderate market fears:

• China’s stock market valuation is a bad indicator of Chinese growth. “Investors should not get carried away by the collapse of the Shanghai Composite Index,” warns Melanie Debono from Capital Economics in note to clients, “not least because its performance often bears little relation to that of the economy, primarily due to wild swings in its valuation.” The market run-up in advance of the selloff was out of step with reality, says Nick Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. That’s why he says there’s likely more to come in the Chinese market correction. Even after the rout, “The market was still trading at 39 times earnings. Give me a break, it’s still too high.”

• The devaluation of the renminbi likely isn’t Beijing scrambling to save the economy through competitive devaluation. Beijing’s depreciation was likely more about addressing a key concern for the International Monetary Fund as it considers whether to include the Chinese yuan in its basket of currencies that comprise its lending reserves than it was about reviving economic growth by juicing exports. On Aug. 11, Beijing changed the way it values the yuan, allowing markets to play a greater role in the exchange rate. Market pressure has long been for depreciation, so allowing the currency to be more market-determined would, in the near-term, naturally see the yuan move lower. Against a basket of global currencies, the yuan has appreciated over the last year by nearly 15%, accounting for inflation. That’s despite Beijing intervening for months to prevent the yuan from losing value. “So the fact that the yuan came down 3% to 4% is not going to make much difference,” said Ted Truman, a former top international finance official at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

• GDP growth may not be nearly as bad as suspected. Economists such as Clare Howarth at Oxford Economics say that beyond official industrial production figures, data on car and cell phones sales are jacking up the risk that China’s growth stalls. But “critics are really overlooking the fact that the growth model has changed in China,” Lardy says. “The service sector is now the driver of growth. So the fact that industrial growth has slowed down quite a bit does not mean, as it would have meant 10 years ago, that the economy is falling off a cliff.” Based on electricity consumption, “I just don’t see any signs that the Chinese economy is experiencing a hard landing,” says Torsten Sløk, Deutsche Bank’s chief international economist. Joe Hockey, treasurer for an economy that is intimately tied to China, Australia, says market reactions have been overblown. “We’re confident about our understanding of the Chinese economy and we see over time huge opportunities for growth,” Mr. Hockey told the Journal.

• Rather than regressing to policies of old, China’s government has actually been showing signs of moving ahead with market reforms.

Source: What if the China Panic Is All Wrong? – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Posted in China alert, Economics | 1 Comment »

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24/11/2014

China’s Bluestar to buy REC Solar for $640 million | Reuters

China National Bluestar has agreed to buy solar panel maker REC Solar (RECSOL.OL) for 4.34 billion Norwegian crowns ($640 million), planning to combine it with another Norwegian asset it picked up in 2011.

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Bluestar said on Monday it would pay a 15.9 percent premium to the stock’s last close in a deal unanimously recommended by REC Solar’s board of directors and would combine it with its solar grade silicon maker Elkem.

The deal comes nearly a year and a half after REC (REC.OL) spun off its solar panel arm, moving its headquarters to Singapore from Norway and effectively putting the company up for sale.

via China’s Bluestar to buy REC Solar for $640 million | Reuters.

Posted in acquisition, China alert, Economics | Leave a Comment »

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