Day: August 14, 2023

China’s economic recovery continued to struggle across the board in July as the property crisis, which was once a major driver of the economy, deepened and dragged down overall growth. Property investment fell by 8.5 per cent, year on year, from January to July, after dropping 7.9 per cent in the first half of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Tuesday. This marked the lowest growth rate for property investment this year. Property continued to drag down overall fixed-asset investment in the first seven months of…

“His father and I don’t dare to spend too much on other items, since our salaries have stagnated for the past couple of years,” said Liu, who works at a trade company. “If there’s one thing that we’re still generous with, it’s our child’s education.” Chinese universities vow to target fake graduate job data as outlook worsens While broadly tightening their purse strings amid weak income expectations in a slowing economy, Chinese consumers are still splashing out on educational products, even as the government has been discouraging extra academic work…

The Politburo, China’s prime decision-making body, also called on further policy actions to boost domestic demand and prevent risks. On Tuesday, the central bank also cut the seven-day reverse repo rate by 10 basis points to 1.8 per cent. Advertisement “The PBOC lowered its policy rates by a larger-than-usual margin, amid growing concerns among policymakers about the health of Chinas economy,” said Capital Economics. “A cut to the loan prime rate (LPR) later this month is now a given and we expect wider easing measures too. But monetary stimulus is…

BYD has walked away from a deal to equip its electric vehicles with Baidu’s autonomous driving technology, as the world’s largest EV maker eyes in-house development of intelligent car software, according to two people familiar with the matter. BYD had initially agreed to use Baidu’s technology, including navigation and automated valet parking, in its EVs in March 2022. The deal was then seen as a major coup for Baidu’s autonomous driving unit Apollo, which was created in 2013 in pursuit of perfecting autonomous driving, an area CEO Robin Li Yanhong…

The “financialisation” and “monetisation” of China’s property market in the last quarter of a century is probably one of the most phenomenal wealth-creation stories in history. But there are signs the party is coming to an end, and the moment of reckoning is looming large for property developers, homeowners and the government. To understand the crisis gripping China’s real estate sector, it is worth looking into its past. In the first 50 years of the People’s Republic, China did not have a property market as such, as urban residents relied…