China’s shift from export to consumption – Sara Hsu

 

Sara Hsu

China’s leadership is this week drafting its new 5-year plan. Financial analyst Sara Hsu expects an ongoing shift from an export-driven economy to more domestic consumption, she tells at CNBC International. “China realizes it cannot rely on export as it did in the past,” she says.

Sara Hsu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speaker’s request form.

Are you looking for more financial experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

US companies not ready to leave China - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

One of the purposes of Trump's trade war is convincing US companies to leave China. But they are not yet ready to move, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, in the Channel News Asia. And when they move, they might before countries like Vietnam over the US, he adds.

Channels News Asia:

The trade hawks are cleverly using targeted tariffs to make it more difficult for companies to export from China.

(US Trade Representative)“Lighthizer wants US corporations to move into other locations,” says Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Gavekal Dragonomics. His Beijing-based research group has clients who are considering doing just that, though no one has yet pulled the trigger. 

“Vietnam is the obvious alternative but there are still too many potholes,” he says. Companies “don’t want to be the one to fill in the potholes. They want to wait for others to pioneer and then see if it makes sense to move.”

More at the Channel News Asia.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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It's the economy, stupid - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

Journalists and political analysts look at the political bubbles emerging from the ongoing meeting of the Communist party in Beijing, it makes more sense to look at the underlying economic current, says renowned economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®. At NPR he looks back at some difficult years.

NPR:

China's unstable economy has its beginnings not in China but on Wall Street in 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, setting off the worst economic crisis in living memory. 

"In the year after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the value of Chinese exports fell by about 20 percent, which is a very big deal," says Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner of Gavekal Dragonomics and author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know. In 2008, exports were the beating heart of China's economy, employing hundreds of millions of migrant workers who were working their way up China's social ladder to make up the world's largest consumer class. 

"The estimates at the time were that somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million workers in export-related industries along the coasts lost their jobs and had to return home," says Kroeber. "It was a pretty major shock to China." 

How would a country accustomed to double-digit economic growth cope with tens of millions of workers suddenly out of work? China's leaders didn't wait to find out. Within weeks, they passed a historic stimulus package, injecting nearly $600 billion into the economy, an amount worth 15 percent of China's entire economy. 

"It was by far the largest fiscal stimulus, in absolute terms or relative to GDP, of any economy in the world at that time," says Kroeber. 

It worked a little too well. 

Millions of Chinese went back to work on infrastructure projects like the world's most extensive high-speed rail network, highways and subway systems. By 2010, China was back into double-digit growth territory again. 

But all this new money flowing through local governments exposed deep-seated vulnerabilities in China's political system — namely corruption, says Kroeber. 

"Corruption throughout the economy, it kind of got out of control," he says. "It was pretty bad before the financial crisis. The stimulus, I think, just poured gasoline on the fire of corruption."

More at NPR.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more strategic experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list. 

Export still key for China´s economy - Sara Hsu

+Sara Hsu 

It has become fast the new jargon, China´s "new normal", an economic growth on a lower level. But a fast-dropping export could still hurt the country´s economy severely, warns financial analyst Sara Hsu in the Diplomat. If it realizes its restructuring agenda, that might change, but that is still an "if".

Sara Hsu:

U.S. exports to and imports from China decreased in February, falling by 14 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively. Imports of automobiles and auto parts from China fell by 22 percent. U.S. imports from China were down by 8 percent in March. Japanese exports to China also slowed, contracting by 17.3 percent year on year in February and 24.8 percent in March. 

While it is a myth that China’s growth relies mainly on the production of exports, exports do contribute about 26 percent to China’s GDP growth, so that a slowdown in exports has a moderate to strong impact on GDP. The numbers directly impact GDP, and also generate anxiety among market makers about China’s economic future; for example, the Australian dollar fell almost 1.5 percent on China’s trade news, since China is a large consumer of Australia’s natural resources. Despite assurances by China’s leadership that China’s slower expansion is a healthy sign of the “New Normal,” the markets appear not to be fully convinced by this. 

China’s future hinges in large part on its restructuring agenda. As such, China is attempting to move up the export value chain, and has increased exports of technology-intensive goods such as smartphones and transportation vehicles. While most of China’s high-tech export products are assembled rather than fully produced in China, home-grown technology companies are being encouraged. High-technology manufacturing will, over time, result in higher-paid jobs, higher value of production and exports, and commercial innovation. This will hopefully increase China’s export value, in time. In the short run, until China’s economy bottoms out, Europe really rebounds, and the dollar slows its ascent, we may see more surprises in the trade figures. Beijing will no doubt be hoping they won’t be as shocking as they were this time around.

More in the Diplomat.

Sara Hsu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Sara Hsu? Do check out the list here.

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The painful shift from cheap labor to high consumption - Victor Shih

Victor Shih

China's economy is changing from cheap labor and export to domestic consumption. But the move away for wasteful investments is not an easy one, tells political and financial analyst Victor Shih in The Guardian.

The Guardian:

"The liberalised labour market contributed to high exports, which subsidised this extremely wasteful investment by the Chinese government," said Victor Shih of Northwestern University in Chicago. "Now China's trade surplus is shrinking, and shrinking much faster than a lot of people had anticipated." 

It has been hit by European and US woes, and its growing demand for food and oil must be met largely through imports. "The ability of net exports to subsidise wasteful investment will diminish – perhaps quite rapidly. That will create a big challenge for the Chinese government in the coming two to three years," said Shih. "It will take a few more years before consumption becomes the dominant factor to fuel China's growth."

More in The Guardian

Victor Shih is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Shift from export to domestic consumption needed - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

With the export industry in peril yet again, China's government needs to focus on its assets back home, domestic consumption, tells business analyst Shaun Rein to the McClatchy Newspapers. Rising wages are needed to boost economic activity.

"This is hugely important," said Shaun Rein, the managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. "If it gets this wrong, the economy is going to stall. It's a paradigm shift that everyone here recognizes needs to be done. If Europe's economy collapses and exports (from China) get hit real hard, what's going to happen to all the unemployed workers in China? The government wants to minimize the social instability risk that could happen."... 

Rein, whose book "The End of Cheap China," comes out in March, says the government needs to improve access to health care, continue to hike the minimum wage — which it did in 22 of China's provinces last year — and lower import tariffs so that products aren't so expensive. 

"China is no longer a cheap place to do business," he said. "You cannot rely on the export sector at all. China has to see a shift anyway to service and higher-end manufacturing," jobs with higher salaries. "Right now, manufacturing is killing the country. Pollution is high. They need a healthier economy and environment."

More in the McClatchy Newspapers.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

More on Shaun Rein and his upcoming book "The End of Cheap China' on Storify.

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