Is China’s Economy Even Worse than Suspected?…”“China’s steel demand evaporated at unprecedented speed as the nation’s economic growth slowed,”
by Wolf Richter
WolfStreet.com
October 30, 2015
It’s always good to have a plan. So China has a new five-year plan, its 13th. And the plan is to dial down China’s formerly white-hot economy to a target of “medium-high economic growth” for the five years starting in 2016.
“The country will promote greater sophistication in its industrial sector and significantly raise the contribution of consumption to economic growth,” according to the Global Times, a tabloid under the People’s Daily, which is the official propaganda organ of the Communist Party. The goal is to double 2010 GDP and per-capita income by 2020 and create “a moderately prosperous society.”
That’s all exciting stuff for the future. Meanwhile, there’s today.
And today, the Chinese economy isn’t exactly hopping, despite the official GDP growth rate of 6.9% that no one believes, especially not the Chinese leadership. So the People’s Bank of China cut its benchmark interest rates a week ago – the sixth cut since November – to the lowest level in the data going back two decades.
The leadership is trying to reform and restructure the economy away from low-value cheap-labor manufacturing to the miraculous powers of consumerism, implemented decades ago with such glorious success in the US and elsewhere. So exports and imports have been plunging. But no big deal because retail and services are going to make up for it. But other problems are cropping up….
“China’s steel demand evaporated at unprecedented speed as the nation’s economic growth slowed,” Zhu Jimin, deputy head of the China Iron & Steel Association, explained on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. Demand for steel, which is used in everything from buildings to cars, has dropped by 8.7% in September from a year ago. Prices have crashed. And steel mills are buckling under their debts even as they’re producing tons of red ink in an ocean of overcapacity.
The Rest…HERE
