Tag: Economic Conditions and Trends

How Will China Fare With Covid? ‘Meaningless’ Data Clouds the Picture.

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“My feeling now is that everyone is afraid of testing positive, and those who are timid dare not go out,” she said. Relaxing the country’s Covid rules is a good first step, but the government needs to do more to support ordinary people and small businesses, Ms. Zheng said, adding that “nothing is certain at the moment.” Ting Lu, chief China economist for Nomura, a Japanese brokerage, said he wasn’t “too optimistic” about a sharp recovery in the Chinese economy, because he expects continued disruptions from an overwhelmed health care…

How Will China Turn Its Economy Back On? The World Is About to Find Out.

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For months, investors and C.E.O.s waited anxiously for China to ease up on its Covid restrictions, which burdened the economy and were out of sync with the rest of the world. Stock markets rallied on mere rumors of policy changes. Companies warned that “zero Covid” was hurting business. Now that China has finally started rolling back its strict mix of mass testing, lockdowns and quarantines, its economy is entering a delicate period when it will face a set of challenges that do not fit neatly with other countries’ experiences during…

Defaults Loom as Poor Countries Face an Economic Storm

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WASHINGTON — Developing nations are facing a catastrophic debt crisis in the coming months as rapid inflation, slowing growth, rising interest rates and a strengthening dollar coalesce into a perfect storm that could set off a wave of messy defaults and inflict economic pain on the world’s most vulnerable people. Poor countries owe, by some calculations, as much as $200 billion to wealthy nations, multilateral development banks and private creditors. Rising interest rates have increased the value of the dollar, making it harder for foreign borrowers with debt denominated in…

As Officials Ease Restrictions, China Faces New Pandemic Risks

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As one country after another succumbed to outbreaks this year, China kept the coronavirus at bay, buying valuable time to prepare for the inevitable: a variant of the virus so shifty and contagious that China, too, would struggle to contain it. But rather than laying the groundwork for that scenario, China stepped up its commitment to “zero Covid,” deploying snap lockdowns and contact tracing. In the meantime, daily vaccinations fell to record lows. Critical-care beds remained in short supply, even as workers built testing booths and isolation facilities. Research on…

China Says It Will Do More to Vaccinate Older People Against Covid

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Faced with growing social unrest over its tough pandemic measures, China said on Tuesday it would ramp up vaccination of its oldest citizens, a move that experts have argued is crucial if the world’s second largest economy is to ease Covid measures and reopen its economy. Authorities will bring vaccines to people in nursing homes, go door-to-door, use mobile vaccination stations and press those who are reluctant to give a reason, according to a statement from the National Health Commission. About 90 percent of China’s total population is fully vaccinated,…

China Protests Over ‘Zero Covid’ Follow Months of Economic Pain

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The toll of China’s unwavering approach to fighting Covid has rippled through the world’s second-largest economy for months: Youth unemployment reached a record 20 percent, corporate profits sagged, and economic growth fell well below Beijing’s own projections. The economic pain has intensified the pressure to ease pandemic restrictions to salvage the flagging economy and restore some semblance of normal life. Frustration with the government’s zero-tolerance Covid strategy, which has failed to prevent a big jump in cases, escalated over the weekend as a population tired of unpredictable lockdowns, extended quarantines…

Chinese Unrest Over Lockdowns Upends Global Economic Outlook

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The swelling protests against severe pandemic restrictions in China — the world’s second-largest economy — are injecting a new element of uncertainty and instability into the global economy when nations are already struggling to manage the fallout from a war in Ukraine, an energy crisis and painful inflation. For years, China has served as the world’s factory and a vital engine of global growth, and turmoil there cannot help but ripple elsewhere. Analysts warn that more unrest could further slow the production and distribution of integrated circuits, machine parts, household…

The Covid Protests in China, Explained

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“Lift the lockdown,” the protesters screamed in a city in China’s far west. On the other side of the country, in Shanghai, demonstrators held up sheets of blank white paper, turning them into an implicit but powerful sign of defiance. One protester, who was later detained by the police, was carrying only flowers. Over the weekend, protests against China’s strict Covid restrictions ricocheted across the country in a rare case of nationwide civil unrest. There had been signs of dissent, but the new wave of anger may pose a bigger…

Outbreaks Test China’s Efforts to Limit the Cost of ‘Zero Covid’

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Barely a week after no longer requiring residents to show a negative Covid test to use mass transit, the authorities in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang have locked down much of the city for five days as infections surge. In Shanghai, many neighborhoods have begun requiring frequent Covid tests again only days after telling residents that the tests were seldom needed. And across much of Beijing, officials have ordered schools and many businesses to close as daily cases rose over the past week to more than 1,400 and the…

Oil Prices Slide as Investors Worry Energy Demand Is Slowing

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HOUSTON — Saudi Arabia is slashing oil exports. U.S. crude oil in storage is dropping. Members of the European Union will soon sharply reduce how much fuel they buy from Russia. Those developments would normally send oil prices sharply higher. Yet oil prices have been sliding. The U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, fell to about $80 a barrel on Friday from more than $90 at the start of the month. The global supply of oil appears to be falling, but many oil traders think that demand is heading down even…