Tag: Economic Conditions and Trends

China’s Economy Will Expand About 5 percent, A Cautious Target

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China’s government said it expected the country’s economy to grow “around 5 percent” this year, a goal that may be attainable as activity rebounds quickly but will still require considerable public borrowing and spending on roads, rail lines and other infrastructure. Li Keqiang, who will finish his decade as the country’s premier in the coming days, announced the target on Sunday at the opening of the annual session of the National People’s Congress. “This year, it is essential to prioritize economic stability and pursue progress while ensuring stability,” Mr. Li…

What to Expect at China’s National People’s Congress as Xi Tightens Grip

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China’s leaders are set to use a gathering of the top legislature starting Sunday to outline plans to restore public confidence and bolster economic growth after a year of uncertainty, disruption and discontent around the government’s Covid restrictions. The annual session of the largely ceremonial National People’s Congress is aimed at conveying the ruling Communist Party’s confidence and inspiring national unity. For the country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, this year’s event will also be key to reinforcing his authority after his signature “zero Covid” policy, now abandoned, drew widespread protests…

China’s Factories Report Surge in Activity After Lockdowns End

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After being brutally battered by the coronavirus pandemic last year, Chinese factories bounced back with unexpected vigor last month. The official index of manufacturing activity, based on surveys of purchasing managers at companies in China, shot up in February from the month before to its highest level in more than a decade. The index of service sector activity also rose.Both measures suggested that business had expanded for a second straight month, after contracting during the Covid restrictions. After a year of unrelenting lockdowns, quarantines and coronavirus testing that paralyzed much…

China’s Cities Are Cutting Health Insurance, and People Are Angry

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Local governments across China, facing a financial tipping point after three years of expensive Covid measures, are forcing abrupt changes on the country’s health care system, squeezing benefits and angering citizens. Thousands of seniors, who are most vulnerable to the cutbacks, converged on municipal parks and other public spaces in recent days to protest the changes. They gathered in the chilly northeastern city of Dalian, in semitropical Guangzhou nearly 1,500 miles away and in Wuhan in central China, where the Covid pandemic began at the end of 2019. One of…

What the War in Ukraine Has Truly Cost Us

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I’ll never forget the stories I heard on the Ukrainian-Polish border one year ago: Newlyweds who separated hours after saying their vows so the groom could return to the front. A tax preparer in Boston who quit her job to return to Ukraine with suitcases full of medical supplies. The wife of a border guard who made the three-hour round trip from Lviv to the Polish border almost daily to drop off fleeing women and children and pick up weapons and supplies. The one-year mark of this terrible war brings…

How Russia Is Surviving the Tightening Grip on Its Oil Revenue

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Using customs data from India, Mr. Vakulenko, the Russian oil expert, showed that local importers of Russian crude paid almost the same price as Brent crude. A New York Times analysis of the same data produced similar results. The explanation, Mr. Vakulenko suggested, is that at least part of the large discount on the quoted Urals price had been pocketed by Russian exporters and intermediaries, who then charged a higher price to the buyers in India. This revenue will not accrue directly to the Russian government in taxes, said Tatiana…

Flowers, Fresh Fish and Movies: China Is Spending Again, Cautiously

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In downtown Nanjing, China, a fishmonger sold a lot more ribbon fish than usual for Lunar New Year family gatherings two weeks ago. A florist in a run-down shopping mall on the south side of the city sold more roses. But a lamp vendor a few steps away in the mall has seen no recovery in sales. And at an Infiniti car dealership on Nanjing’s edge, customer visits have jumped 20 or 30 percent, but have not yet translated into extra car sales. “The economic impact of the epidemic lingers…

Air Force Says Proposed Chinese-Owned Mill in North Dakota Is ‘Significant Threat’

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After more than a year of debate about whether a Chinese company’s plan to build a corn mill in North Dakota was an economic boon or a geopolitical risk, an assistant secretary of the Air Force has weighed in with a warning that the “project presents a significant threat to national security.” The letter from Assistant Secretary Andrew P. Hunter, released publicly on Tuesday by North Dakota’s senators, noted the proximity of Grand Forks Air Force Base to the proposed mill and said the project raised “near- and long-term risks…

Russia Sidesteps Western Punishments, With Help From Friends

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WASHINGTON — A strange thing happened with smartphones in Armenia last summer. Shipments from other parts of the world into the tiny former Soviet republic began to balloon to more than 10 times the value of phone imports in previous months. At the same time, Armenia recorded an explosion in its exports of smartphones to a beleaguered ally: Russia. The trend, which was repeated for washing machines, computer chips and other products in a handful of other Asian countries last year, provides evidence of some of the new lifelines that…

IMF Upgrades Global Economic Outlook as Inflation Eases

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WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund said on Monday that the global economy was expected to slow this year as central banks continued to raise interest rates to tame inflation, but it also suggested that growth would be more resilient than previously anticipated and that a global recession would probably be avoided. The I.M.F. upgraded its economic growth projections for 2023 and 2024 in its closely watched World Economic Outlook report, pointing to resilient consumers and the reopening of China’s economy as among the reasons for a more optimistic outlook. The fund…