China’s Economy Continues To Crumble As Key Data Is Worst In 15 Years
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
09/13/2015
When China transitioned to a new currency regime midway through last month, the PBoC triggered a veritable meltdown in emerging markets.
Make no mistake, part of the carnage was due to the fact that by devaluing the yuan, Beijing was effectively robbing the world of export competitiveness at a very precarious time. Fears that a weaker yuan would put upward pressure on regional REERs while further dampening onshore demand exacerbated an already tenuous situation across EMs, and in at least one case, forced the abandonment of a currency peg.
Having said that, the yuan devaluation was perhaps more significant for what it telegraphed about China’s economy. That is, the yuan had appreciated by some 15% in REER terms in the space of just 12 months, and the fact that Beijing hadn’t gone the nuclear devaluation route (i.e. had “merely” resorted to multiple policy rate cuts) was seen by some as an indication that perhaps the economic situation wasn’t as bad as many people feared. The devaluation effectively crushed that theory and indeed, there are some indications that behind the scenes, China is targeting a devaluation on the order of some 20% which would have the effect of adding back 20 percentage points of export growth on the way to – hopefully- resuscitating output.
On Sunday, we got still more evidence to suggest that China’s economy isn’t growing at anywhere near the clip the official figures suggest as industrial production came in light of expectations and FAI rose at the slowest pace since 2000. Here’s WSJ:
The Rest…HERE
