China’s giant housing market has continued to decline in the past month and another major developer showed signs of financial distress as state-owned enterprises began carving up the carcass of the failing property giant Evergrande. House prices, sales, investment and construction data released on Wednesday all showed renewed signs of the crisis in the market, which accounts up to 30% of the country’s output and which appears certain to drag on the world’s second biggest economy. It comes a day after shares in one of China’s largest developers, Shimao Group,…
Tag: Economics
China’s indebted property sector highlights a fading economic revival
China’s economy has become heavily dependent on property development over the last decade. High-rise apartments have mushroomed across hundreds of cities to house a growing white-collar workforce, while glass and steel office blocks are dominating city centres, mimicking Shanghai’s glittering skyline. Valued at more than $50tn after 20 years of rapid growth, Chinese real estate is worth twice as much as the US property market and four times China’s annual income. George Magnus, an associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, says this real estate market ranks as the most important…
Oil prices climb to fresh highs, UK petrol price hits record – business live
More reaction is coming in from trade unions, economists and analysts to the increase in the national living wage and the minimum wage from next April. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said a boost to the minimum wage was vital “in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis” But the government must set its sights higher. We need a £10 minimum wage now, and we need ministers to cancel the cut to universal credit. This increase won’t come into effect until next spring by which time…
UK bond yields soar as investors anticipate interest rate rise; China’s growth slows – business live
Some economists fear that raising interest rates at this point would be a blunder. It would tighten monetary policy at a time when households and businesses are already being squeezed by higher energy costs, and as government Covid-19 support measures, such as the universal credit uplift, are withdrawn, hurting vulnerable families. A rate hike might calm inflation expectations; policymakers worry that workers will seek higher wages to match rising prices in the shops (although not every employee has as much leverage as, say, a qualified HGV lorry driver). But it…
China And America: A New Game In A New Era – Analysis
By William H. Overholt* China and the United States are in a different game than the rising power/established power conflicts of the past. Most analyses of such rivalries are based on pre–World War II history and fail to notice that the game changed radically after World War II. Sometimes when alterations are made in the rules or implements of a game, the risks and the optimal strategies change. Leading scholars and strategists tend to misread the lessons of the past for Sino-American conflict because they fail to recognize that these…