China pide paso...

[kemao2]

Los chinos ya están notando los efectos de la guerra de divisas de Japon y su impresora . Son los mas afectados directamente junto con Corea del Sur.

 

[LoQueNoCuentan]

los costes de producción en china cada vez son mas altos y las empresas empiezan a irse a otros paises mas baratos como Thailandia.

---------- Post added 29-may-2013 at 18:20 ----------

El problema que hay con los chinos es que en su pais producen en condiciones laborales muy inferiores a las que hay en España, lo que permite abaratar costes (en muchisimos casos, tambien a costa de controles de calidad). Luego se les permite introducir esos productos con aranceles minimos o identicos a los de otros paises que si respetan los derechos laborales. Y por ultimo, montan unas redes de distribucion que trabajan tambien en condiciones peores que nosotros. Al final, sus productos son muchisimo mas baratos y se imponen a los nuestros.

 

[p_pin]

Es lógico pensar que si hay "crisis mundial" el principal país productor-exportador sufra las consecuencias?

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Rosy China growth forecasts fade on further signs of slowdown | Reuters

Rosy China growth forecasts fade on further signs of slowdown

By Koh Gui Qing

BEIJING | Fri May 24, 2013 9:55am BST

(Reuters) - As evidence mounts that China's economy is losing momentum, economists are fast abandoning their rosy recovery forecasts and bracing for what could be the country's slowest growth rate in 23 years.

In the space of five months, analysts have swung from confidently predicting a modest pick-up in the world's second-biggest economy to pondering the chance that China will miss its own 7.5 percent growth target this year.

Concerns that Beijing's growth target may be under threat came to the fore on Thursday, when a preliminary survey of Chinese factories showed manufacturing activity shrank for the first time in seven months in May after both new domestic and export orders fell.

"Yes, the 7.5 percent target is under threat," said Ken Peng, an economist at BNP Paribas in Beijing.

"China does not have a recession, but there will not be a recovery."

Unlike previous years when any wobble in the Chinese growth engine was countered with heavy government intervention to stabilise activity, economists are counting on things being different this time.

There will be no big-bang stimulus like the 4 trillion yuan (431 billion pounds) package unveiled after the 2008/09 financial crisis to spur growth, analysts say. Instead, leaders appear to be banking on China adjusting to a new norm of slower and hopefully better-quality growth that requires less state planning.

Sources close to Beijing told Reuters this week that China's plan to spend $6.5 trillion to urbanise its economy is running into snags as the government weighs the pros and cons of another spending binge that would escalate local debt problems and likely add to inflationary pressures.

Just how much growth will cool without policy action is difficult guesswork, but a string of underwhelming Chinese economic data have led some economists to contemplate worst-case scenarios of growth sinking below 7 percent in 2013.

"What investors are worried about is whether the situation in China right now is a lot more menacing than growth slowing to the 7 handle," Tao Wang said in a note this week after cutting her 2013 gross domestic product forecast to 7.7 percent, from 8 percent.

SLASHING FORECASTS

It was always a close call.

Forecasts of a mild economic revival in China were predicated on activity picking up to 8 percent in 2013, quickening a shade from last year's 7.8 percent, which was the worst showing in 13 years.

And calls for an economic cooldown now centre on growth dipping below 8 percent, but still above the government's increasingly-vulnerable 7.5 percent target.

The last time China's growth sunk below 7.5 percent was in 1990, when the economy expanded by just 3.9 percent.

Even before Thursday's dismal survey results of Chinese factories, a host of banks had started slashing their 2013 growth estimates for China, and more are set to do so.

Bank of America-Merrill Lynch pared its growth forecast this month to 7.6 percent from 8 percent, Standard Chartered cut its estimate to 7.7 percent from 8.3 percent, and ING last month reduced its prediction to 7.8 percent from 9 percent.

BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Societe Generale are all in the midst of revising their 2013 growth forecasts.

To complicate matters, analysts cite different reasons for what is hobbling China's economic growth, which unexpectedly eased in the first quarter after an initial promising rebound fizzled in just three months.

Lacklustre wage growth, which is at a five-year low, is the biggest drag on consumption, some say. A government campaign to curb wasteful public spending is also hurting retail sales.

Others say anaemic growth in factory output and trade is offsetting resilient investment, while some argue that government infrastructure spending has waned amid tighter state controls over alternative financing.

Global demand also has remained stubbornly weak, with the euro zone now in its longest-ever recession, offsetting some signs of improvement in the United States.

One of the rare points of agreement is that China's property sector - the one industry that the government wants to slow - is ironically on a rebound.

The other is that China's days of double-digit economic growth rates are over, and that the economic structure needs to be changed to let consumption overtake investment as the most important driver of growth.

"What the last couple of months has shown is that we have exhausted this China growth model and what we need now is the next China growth model," said Alistair Thornton, an economist at IHS. ($1 = 6.1340 Chinese yuan)

China Failure to Grow With $1 Trillion Is Warning to Li: Economy - Bloomberg

China Failure to Grow With $1 Trillion Is Warning to Li: Economy
By Bloomberg News - 2013-05-30T07:25:25Z

China’s economy is proving less responsive to credit, escalating pressure on Premier Li Keqiang to strengthen the role of private enterprise.

The government’s broadest measure of credit rose 58 percent to a record 6.16 trillion yuan ($1 trillion) in January-to-March, when gross domestic product gained 7.7 percent, compared with 8.1 percent a year earlier. Each $1 in credit firepower added the equivalent of 17 cents in GDP, down from 29 cents last year and 83 cents in 2007, when global money markets began to freeze, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The diminishing returns to lending heighten focus on the need for what the International Monetary Fund said yesterday are “decisive” policy changes in the world’s second-largest economy. Without a refocus away from state-approved projects, Li and President Xi Jinping risk overseeing both a further slowdown in growth and an increase in non-performing loans.

“Less efficient and more highly leveraged borrowers have been kept afloat, tying up credit that could be used to generate more growth,” said David Loevinger, former senior coordinator for China affairs at the U.S. Treasury Department. “To boost growth, China needs to channel more financing to its private enterprises, which are both more profitable and less leveraged than their state-owned counterparts.”

State enterprises have seen their return on equity fall to 5.9 percent last year from 10.2 percent in 2010, according to the Ministry of Finance. The biggest concern from China’s credit surge is the money going to companies and state-run enterprises whose performance is deteriorating, Francis Cheung, head of China-Hong Kong strategy at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, wrote in a May 9 report.

Bond Market

Signals from China’s bond market, which has expanded 39 percent so far this year compared with the same period in 2012, indicate businesses are struggling to improve profitability even with greater access to credit.

Borrowing in the debt market by the biggest Chinese companies is more than five times a measure of their operating earnings, twice the leverage ratio in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. State-owned enterprises in energy and power production are among the biggest borrowers, including China National Petroleum Corp., the nation’s largest oil producer, and China State Grid Corp., the country’s largest power distributor.

Among 102 non-financial companies in the MSCI China Index, total debt over earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose to 5.74 times based on the latest filings through May 28, from 2.49 times in 2007.

Solar Loans

One example of what Loevinger, now an emerging-markets analyst in Los Angeles at TCW Group Inc., called “inefficient and leveraged borrowers,” may be LDK Solar Co. (LDK), a maker of solar panels. The company, which cut solar-cell production capacity by 89 percent last year, said in April it’s in the process of getting a new loan facility of about 2 billion yuan.

With debt of $3.1 billion, seven straight quarterly losses and cash at a three-year low, LDK needs access to funds “to get through this very challenging time,” Chief Financial Officer Jack Lai said on an April 18 conference call. The announcement came after larger competitor Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP)’s biggest unit was forced into bankruptcy in March.

The 2014 yuan bonds of LDK, which failed to fully repay $23.8 million of convertible notes in April, slid to a seven-month low of 34 yuan per 100 yuan face value earlier this month.

Reduce Role

Since taking office in March, Li has pledged to reduce government interference and boost the role of private companies. He said March 17 that cutting the government’s power amounted to a “self-imposed revolution” and earlier this month signaled in a speech broadcast to government officials around the nation that he would prefer relying on “market mechanisms” for growth rather than stimulus or direct government investment.

China’s leaders are already experimenting with some changes, including to the household-registration system that hampers urbanization. Other reforms, such as to land rights and income distribution, may be decided later this year at a Communist Party forum.

Xi and Li have signaled they’re willing to tolerate slower growth if it’s more sustainable in the longer run and provides a better quality of life for the nation’s 1.35 billion people. Xi said May 24 that the environment won’t be sacrificed to ensure short-term economic expansion, as the government faces rising public discontent over pollution and food safety issues.

Annual Pace

Li said this week that 7 percent average annual growth is needed this decade as the country seeks to double per-capita income. That’s lower than the 7.5 percent target the government set in March for this year.

Forty-one percent of respondents in a Bloomberg global poll of investors this month saw China’s average growth rate falling to 6 percent to 7 percent over the next five years, while 18 percent said it will slump to less than 6 percent. Even with an 81 percent increase in credit in April from a year earlier, manufacturing contracted in May for the first time in seven months, according to the preliminary reading of a Purchasing Managers’ Index from HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.3 percent at the close, extending the drop to 4.8 percent since this year’s high on Feb. 6.

David Lipton, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, warned yesterday that rapid credit growth “raises questions about the quality of the investment and the impact that may have on repayment capacity” for companies and local governments. China’s leaders have assured the IMF that reining in credit expansion is a priority, Lipton told reporters in Beijing.

Restrain Spending

China had snapped seven quarters of decelerating growth in the fourth quarter only to slow again in the first three months of 2013. Europe’s debt crisis is curbing shipments abroad, manufacturing gains are weakening and a government anti-extravagance campaign has restrained restaurant and retail sales.

“Such stalling is extremely rare in recent macroeconomic cycles,” Stephen Green, head of Greater China research at Standard Chartered Plc in Hong Kong, wrote in a May 10 note. “Once China’s growth starts accelerating, it usually continues.”

Green sees the injection of credit fueling an uptick in output toward the end of this quarter and next, when he forecasts growth edging up to 7.8 percent as housing, infrastructure and exports strengthen.

Companies may be holding some of the new credit in reserve in bank deposits, according to Michael Werner, a banking analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in Hong Kong. A 3.1 trillion yuan increase in corporate bank deposits in March may indicate companies front-loaded lending to guard against any crackdown on credit channels after Xi and Li took office, he said.

Economic Effect

“That tells me that not all of the money has been allocated yet into the economy,” Werner said.

The diminishing impact of credit on growth shows that companies are restraining investment because they recognize that the “outlook for sustainable final demand is weak” unless new policies boost household consumption, said Ramin Toloui, the Singapore-based global co-head of emerging markets portfolio management at Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s biggest bond fund.

“China’s challenge used to be to mobilize the factors of production -- labor, capital, and technology -- to service boundless global demand,” Toloui said. “Now the challenge is to unleash the potential of Chinese households to serve as sources of that demand.”

Asian Economies

Elsewhere in Asia today, a report showed the Philippine economy grew at the fastest pace in almost three years in the first three months of the year. Gross domestic product rose 7.8 percent from a year earlier, compared with a revised 7.1 percent gain in the previous quarter.

South Korea reported that industrial production rose in April from the previous month after three straight declines.

“It’s still hard to say the economy is showing an upturn,” Statistics Korea Director-General Park Seong Dong told reporters in Sejong, adding the gain was driven by increases in shipbuilding and mobile-phone parts manufacturing.

Data in the U.S. today include jobless claims, the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index and revised first-quarter figures for gross domestic product.

China to Study Joining U.S.-Led Trade Accord After Japan Added - Businessweek

Y por cierto parece que el próximo superordenador chino viene pisando fuerte:
China rumored to rule impending Top500 supers list with 50-plus petaflopper ? The Register

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Global shock as manufacturing contracts in US and China - Telegraph

Global shock as manufacturing contracts in US and China

Manufacturing has begun to contract in the US and China for the first time since the Lehman crisis, raising antiestéticars of a synchronized downturn in the world’s two largest economies.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

6:55PM BST 03 Jun 2013

The closely-watched ISM index of US factories tumbled through the “boom-bust line” of 50 to 49, far below expectations. It is the lowest since the depths of the crisis in mid-2009 and a clear sign that US budget cuts are starting to squeeze the economy. New orders plunged 3.5 to 48.8 on weak foreign demand and reduced federal contracts.

The news came hours after HSBC said its index for China also fell below 50, a major inflexion point for the world’s industrial workshop.

“This is not a good moment for the world economy,” said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. “The manufacturing indices came in weaker than expected in China, Korea, India and Russia, and then we got America’s ISM.

“We thought we had a clear picture that the US was recovering, Japan was printing money and were we’re back to happy days, and now suddenly a huge spanner has been thrown in the works.”

Mr Bloom said a sharp strengthening of the Japanese yen on safe-haven flows and the 16pc fall of the Nikkei index from its peak are disturbing. “People are asking whether the 'Abenomics’ bubble is bursting.”

The OECD says the US is tightening fiscal policy by 3.2pc of GDP this year, the biggest squeeze in half a century. Consumers spent their way through the initial shock in the first quarter by slashing the national savings rate to 2.5pc.

“People have been living in a psychological bubble,” said Charles Dumas from Lombard Street Research. “They ignored the cuts but now they are starting to feel it.”

The ISM quoted a string of gloomy comments from different sectors, such as “government spending has tightened” (computers), “over the past 20 days we have seen the trend flatten” (furniture), or “downturn in European and Chinese markets is having a negative effect on our business” (machinery).

Wall Street reacted calmly to the ISM shock, betting that the US Federal Reserve will delay plans to taper its monthly bond purchases of $85bn (£55.5bn). Stephen Lewis from Monument Securities said this may be a misjudgement. The latest minutes of the Federal Advisor Council, which advises the Fed on markets, are packed with warnings over the side-effects of quantitative easing.

The council said it is “not clear” that QE is boosting the economy, and warned that zero rates are pushing pension funds underwater on their liabilities, and may be causing firms to defer investment on the grounds that rates will remain low.

They also said Fed purchases of mortgage bonds was depriving banks of “bread and butter” business, pushing them into riskier corporate and emerging market debt, and blowing a "bubble" in fixed income and equity markets.

“Normally the council just goes along with the Fed says but it is clear that they have become more alarmed at aspects of Fed policy, so this is significant," said Mr Lewis.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has since begun to echo some of the concerns, testifying to Congress on May 22 that “very low interest rates, if maintained too long, could undermine financial stability”.

The Boston Fed’s ultra-dovish president Eric Rosengren has also shifted ground, saying the bank may need to start tapering soon. The Fed's centre of gravity has clearly shifted.

The concern is that the Fed has largely made up its mind to turn off the liquidity spigot and will not be deterred unless the economy deteriorates dramatically. Or as one trader commented, the “Bernanke Put” has become the “Bernanke Call”.

China

China’s Growing Ranks of Elderly Beset by Depression, Study Says
By Bloomberg News - 2013-05-31T08 :35 :06Z

China’s old people are plagued by depression, illness and poverty, a survey showed, illustrating the challenge the country faces as its restrictive family-planning policy results in a surge in the elderly population.

Among people 60 years old and over, 22.9 percent, or 42.4 million, live on annual income of less than 3,200 yuan ($520), compared to 15.1 percent of people age 45 to 59, according to the survey, conducted in 2011-2012 by a team of academics from China, the U.S. and the World Bank which surveyed 17,708 people across China.

China faces the dilemma of becoming the first country in the world to grow old before entering the ranks of rich nations and paying for the surge in social-services demand. The proportion of China’s more than 1.3 billion people over age 60 is set to rise to 34 percent in 2050 from 12 percent in 2010, according to the report, which cited United Nations figures.

“China confronts rapid population aging at a relatively early stage of her economic development, which limits the amount of financial resources available for supporting the elderly,” the survey’s authors, including Zhao Yaohui of Peking University, wrote.

China’s challenge is even greater because more children are moving away from home and declining fertility means the elderly will have fewer people to support them, the report said.

Three decades of population planning that limited most urban couples to one child, and most rural families to one or two children, will cause a surge of China’s dependency ratio, a measure of the number of children and elderly against the working-age population. That means a smaller percentage of China’s population will be available to work.

Average Income

China’s per capita gross domestic product in 2012 of about $6,300 compares to average per capita GDP of about $40,000 or more in the U.S., Japan, Germany and the U.K.

China’s demographic transition may be eased by the fact that China’s elderly don’t feel as entitled to welfare as their peers in developed countries in Europe, the U.S. and Japan, according to Louis Kuijs, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s chief China economist in Hong Kong, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“There is this whole discussion going on about how China may be getting old before it gets rich,” Kuijs said in a phone interview. “It’s not completely obvious that it makes it harder to deal with the demographic issues. The welfare state is less developed -- it is leaner and meaner -- the government is rolling out more and more of a welfare state but it is still not as nearly developed as it is in Europe.”

More Depressed

The study also found that China’s elderly were more depressed than younger people. Forty percent, or 74 million people over 60, “display higher levels of depressive symptoms,” it said. About 40 million elderly people in China have undiagnosed hypertension, or high blood pressure, it said.

The study said China had done a “remarkable job” expanding health insurance to cover almost all elderly people. It said 92 percent of the elderly with an urban residence permit and 94 percent with a rural permit had some type of health insurance, higher than for working-age people age 45-59.

 

[Namreir]

Tambien sucede en España que todas las Comunidades Autonomas crecen por encima de la media española.

 

[kemao2]

No problema Japon va parriba


El crecimiento aun con todas las impresoras en marcha no da para mas.

Global shock as manufacturing contracts in US and China - Telegraph


China

 

[Perillán10]

Estaba leyendo algo de Chomsky sobre China (opiniones del 2010) y me he encontrado con este hilo. Dejo los enlaces por si alguien le interesa leerlos:

Contracorriente » China y el nuevo orden mundial (I)


Este principio central de poder es formulado como la teoría dominó en el lenguaje de los estrategas políticos. Se traduce en la práctica en el reconocimiento de que el “bichito” del exitoso desarrollo independiente puede “contagiarse” en cualquier otro lugar y, de esta manera, debe ser destruido mientras las víctimas potenciales de la plaga son inoculadas, normalmente a manos de brutales dictaduras.

Contracorriente » China y el nuevo orden mundial (y II)

De todas las “amenazas” al orden mundial, la más consistente es la democracia –a menos que esté bajo algún control imperial– y, más generalmente, la afirmación de independencia. Estos temores han guiado al poder imperial a lo largo de la historia.



China es actualmente el segundo mayor importador de crudo de Oriente Medio y el mayor exportador a la región, reemplazando a EEUU. Las relaciones comerciales están creciendo de manera acelerada y se han duplicado en los pasados cinco años.

Las implicaciones para el orden mundial son significativas, como lo es el ascenso de la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghái, que incluye buena parte de Asia, pero que ha rechazado a EEUU. Se trata “potencialmente de un nuevo cártel energético que involucra a productores y consumidores”

.

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Parece que aumentan los sentimientos anti-china mainland en Hong Kong:
Hong Kong holds Tiananmen vigil, sends message to Beijing | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Hong Kong holds Tiananmen vigil, sends message to Beijing
By AP News Jun 04, 2013 3:59PM UTC

HONG KONG (AP) — Every year, Hong Kong residents gather in droves for the annual vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen democracy protests. More than marking the brutal crackdown in Beijing 24 years ago, the event here increasingly symbolizes disaffection with rule by China.

Tens of thousands of people were expected to gather Tuesday evening at a large park in the former British colony, holding candles aloft to remember those killed when their protests in central Beijing were crushed by the Chinese military on June 4, 1989. Commemorations of the crackdown are suppressed everywhere else in China.

A picture showing a man blocking a line of tanks at the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing is displayed at the "June 4 Memorial Museum" run by pro-democracy activists at City University in Hong Kong. Pic: AP.

The Hong Kong event has taken on a life of its own, with residents of the now-semiautonomous Chinese region expressing unhappiness that their administrators are still hand-picked by Beijing despite promises of more democracy.

“There are more people who want to use this vigil regarding June 4 as a way to protest against Beijing’s heavy-handed intervention in Hong Kong affairs,” said Willy Lam, a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

When Hong Kongers poured into the streets in 1989, their sympathy with the protesters in Beijing had more to do with antiestéticars about impending Chinese rule — then eight years away. Now it’s about current problems that include corruption, a leader viewed by many as inept and tin-eared, and a yawning wealth gap that has stifled the aspirations of the city’s large middle-class.

And “of course it also expresses the anger of people over the Chinese government messing with our democratic reform,” said pro-democracy legislator Lee Cheuk-yan. Organizers hope to match last year’s turnout, which they estimated at 180,000 though police put the number at 85,000.

When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, it was allowed to keep its own political system and Western-style civil liberties such as freedom of speech until 2047.

Residents can vote for some of their legislators, while others are chosen by business and other special interest groups. They’ve never been able to choose their leader, who during British colonial rule was dispatched from London. Since China retook control, the leader, now known as chief executive, has been chosen by a committee of mostly pro-Beijing elites.

Beijing has pledged to allow Hong Kongers to elect their leader by 2017 and elect all legislators in 2020 but no roadmap has been laid out.

The lack of progress has led Hong Kong University professor Benny Tai to propose a protest movement in which supporters would occupy the city’s financial district in 2014 in a last-ditch attempt to press their demands for a genuine chief executive election.

Hong Kongers’ yearning for democracy is illustrated by their frustrations with current Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who has been hit by a series of controversies since taking office less than a year ago.

Leung’s already poor approval rating plummeted further over the past few months, according to opinion polls by Hong Kong University researchers. Last week, a senior mainland official took the unusual step of denying there was a plan to replace him.

“One huge problem with C.Y. Leung is that he’s a yes-man; he’s regarded as a stooge of Beijing,” Lam said.

Last year, protests forced Leung to back down from plans to require Chinese patriotism classes in schools, which some parents antiestéticared was a form of brainwashing. In January, he survived an impeachment attempt.

Leung took office with promises to provide more affordable housing but residents haven’t had much relief from high rents and home prices in Hong Kong, where tens of thousands live in cubicles, metal cages or other substandard housing even though it’s one of Asia’s richest cities.

His latest troubles revolve around a scandal involving a member of his Cabinet, Barry Cheung, who was also a key supporter of his bid for Hong Kong’s top job. Cheung was forced to resign from all his public positions after police launched an investigation into him and his fledgling Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, which had to return its trading license last month, two years after it opened. Six people have also been arrested in connection with the investigation.

A spate of corruption scandals has raised worries about the integrity of public officials in Hong Kong, an Asian financial center that likes to boast of clean government and strong rule of law. In May, the city’s corruption watchdog launched a criminal investigation of its former chief over complaints of excessive spending on gifts and meals on visits with mainland Chinese officials.

Last year, the Independent Commission Against Corruption also investigated Leung’s predecessor over allegations he received favors like luxury travel and an upscale apartment from wealthy friends. Separately, a former chief secretary, the second highest ranking official, has been charged in a corruption case along with a pair of billionaire developers.

Tensions have also been growing over the unwelcome side-effects of increasing numbers of mainland visitors. Last year about 35 million visited Hong Kong, a cramped city of 7.1 million. Locals have taken to deriding their mainland cousins as “locusts” for their reputation for buying up luxury goods, apartments and even baby formula.

To calm rising anger over shortages of formula — coveted by mainland parents after China’s tainted milk scandal — the government in March prohibited visitors from leaving the city with more than two cans.

amowing Tuesday’s vigil, some plan to march to the Chinese central government’s liaison office where, radical lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung said, they will demand the Communist Party end one-party rule, pay homage to the Tiananmen victims and release all political prisoners.

Mientras continúa la guerra de aranceles, EU a China con los paneles solares:
EU slaps levies on Chinese solar panel imports | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

EU slaps levies on Chinese solar panel imports
By AP News Jun 05, 2013 9:35AM UTC

BERLIN (AP) — The European Union announced Tuesday that it is imposing anti-dumping levies on imports of Chinese solar panels, in a move that could trigger a trade war between two of the world’s largest economies.

EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said the 27-nation bloc will impose a tariff of about 12 percent on the import of solar panels, cells and wafers from this week, increasing it to an average of 47 percent in August unless a settlement is reached with China in the next 60 days.

China, the world’s largest producer of solar panels, is accused by the EU of selling them below-cost — a tactic known as dumping — to corner the market. Its exports of solar panels to Europe totaled 21 billion euros in 2011.

The cheap Chinese products are flooding the market and threaten to bring down EU manufacturers, De Gucht told journalists in Brussels.

According to EU calculations, a fair sale price for Chinese solar panels should be 88 percent higher than what they are currently being sold for.

“It has the potential to destroy an important industry in Europe if we don’t act today,” he added, noting that more than 20,000 jobs in Europe are at stake.

The EU is China’s second-biggest business partner after the U.S., with a trade volume of about 430 billion euros in 2012. Solar panel exports in 2011 stood for about 7 percent of China’s total exports to the EU.

The EU decision is another blow to the Chinese government’s efforts to promote one of its important export industries. Last year, the U.S. imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese solar products.

The EU Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has decided not to slap a punitive 47 percent tariff on all solar panel imports straight away in an attempt to avoid an escalating trade war, where each side engages in tit-for-tat tariffs and boycotts. Instead it is looking for a negotiated solution: Beijing now has 60 days to reach a settlement with the Commission.

“The ball is now in China’s court,” De Gucht said. “This is a one-time offer to the Chinese side to negotiate.”

The trade row between the EU and China is the world’s biggest anti-dumping case by sales volume, according to EU officials.

“The Commission is making a gesture in order to avoid an all-out trade war,” said leading conservative European Parliament lawmaker Daniel Caspary, adding that is now China’s turn to show equally responsible behavior.

“China has to show it is willing to stick to the rules of a globalized economy,” he said.

The global solar panel market is suffering from significant overcapacity, which has led to falling prices throughout the industry and stiff competition that has forced several European manufacturers out of business. One of China’s largest producers, Suntech, also filed for bankruptcy in March, while several other manufacturers there have reported heavy losses.

A coalition of European solar producers, EU ProSun, which was among the complainants that sparked the EU’s investigation nine months ago, welcomed the new levies as a step to counter China’s “flagrant violations of international trade law.”

“Dumping is fraud and harms the future of solar energy and must be relegated to the past,” the group said.

China rejects the EU’s price-dumping allegations.

De Gucht added that to reach a settlement, Chinese manufacturers would have to agree to increase their prices and accept a lower market share quota. Chinese solar panels’ share of the EU market has risen to 80 percent over recent years.

If an agreement can’t be reached, the final anti-dumping tariffs, valid for five years, would require approval by a majority of the EU’s 27 member states six months from now. If the EU governments were to reject the tariffs, the money collected between now and the vote would be returned to China.

Several EU nations, including heavyweight Germany, have spoken out against imposing special duties and urged the Commission to reach a settlement with China.

Germany has the bloc’s biggest solar industry, but Berlin antiestéticars imposing special duties could provoke Chinese retaliation on imports of European goods which, in turn, would harm German exporters.

De Gucht sought to dispel antiestéticars of retaliation measures, rejecting such questions as “hypothetical.”

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang warned last month imposing punitive tariffs would hurt European consumers and might encourage trade protectionism — although he stopped short of threatening retaliation.

The problem with the solar industry is not new for Beijing. The U.S. last year imposed punitive tariffs of up to nearly 250 percent on solar panel imports after finding that China’s government was subsidizing companies that were flooding the U.S. market. Solar panel and cell imports to the U.S. in 2011 totaled $3.1 billion, the Commerce Department has said.

Y china contrataca con.. los vinos (buena cantidad de ellos, españoles, por cierto):
China hits back at EU wine over solar panel duties | Reuters

China hits back at EU wine over solar panel duties



By Terril Yue Jones

BEIJING | Wed Jun 5, 2013 1:00pm EDT

(Reuters) - China took aim on Wednesday at exports of the European wines favored by its growing middle class, responding to an EU move to impose anti-dumping duties of Chinese solar panels as tensions rise between two of the world's biggest trade partners.

In a step targeting southern European states such as France and Italy that back duties but largely sparing northern countries such as Germany that oppose them, Beijing launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy inquiry into sales of European wine.

The European Union will impose duties on imports of Chinese solar panels from Thursday, but has dramatically reduced the initial rate after pressure from some large member states led by Berlin in the hope of negotiating a settlement with Beijing.

China's Commerce Ministry said the EU penalties were imposed despite Beijing making great efforts and showing enormous sincerity in trying to resolve the matter through talks.

"The European side still obstinately imposed unfair duties on Chinese imports of solar panels," the ministry said in a statement on its website (????????????).

China's newly well-to-do, whose ranks are growing as fast as the economy, have a seemingly unquenchable thirst for European wines, especially those from France which make up more than half the total. China is now the biggest importer of Bordeaux wines where consumption soared 110 percent in 2011 alone.

France's trade ministry condemned the Chinese move as "inappropriate and reprehensible", accusing Beijing of opening a new front in an unrelated area. French President Francois Hollande called for a meeting of the 27 EU member states to show solidarity on trade issues, a government spokeswoman said.

In a more cautious reaction, German Economics Minister Philipp Roesler renewed Berlin's call for a negotiated solution and warned of the danger of wider trade confrontation.

Any action is unlikely to be popular with Chinese consumers. "We Chinese love the French wines. They're so sophisticated and go down so well," said Niu Lanxiang, 23, a logistics worker out shopping for wine in a supermarket in Beijing's fashionable Sanlitun district.

"I know wine is more of a Western habit, but China is a modern country now too and we're learning how to enjoy wine," she said. However, not all Chinese share her cultured palate; some still prefer to drink wine mixed with Coca-Cola or Sprite.

A European Commission spokesman told a briefing there was no dumping or subsidy of European wine exports to China and the EU authorities would defend their producers. He declined comment on talk of a trade war, saying Brussels did not use such terms.

The Chinese ministry said the government had begun the inquiry into EU wines at the request of Chinese wine makers.

"The Commerce Ministry has already received an application from the domestic wine industry, which accuses wines imported from Europe of entering China's market by use of unfair trade tactics such as dumping and subsidies," it said in a statement.

"We have noted the quick rise in wine imports from the EU in recent years, and we will handle the investigation in accordance with the law."

The move appeared largely symbolic and less severe than if China had targeted industrial exports such as Airbus aircraft, made by Toulouse-based European aerospace group EADS.

"It's a very calculated move. Wine is significant enough as a signal, yet it's not important enough to hurt industries in the European Union," said Xu Bin, professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

China's "underlying interests" were very much in favor of resolving the solar panel issue within the next two months without over-reacting, he said. "Neither side wants to see a trade war, but both sides have their own interests."

FRANCE HIT HARDEST

EU wine exports to China excluding Hong Kong, which EU officials said was not covered by the announcement, reached 257.3 million liters in 2012 for a value of nearly $1 billion. More than half - 139.5 million liters - came from France.

Diageo and Pernod are among the suppliers.

European wine-growers receive subsidies from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, although not specifically for exports. For example, the biggest producer of Beaujolais wines, George Duboeuf, received 1.1 million euros ($1.4 million) in EU handouts in the 2011/12 season, according to the French Agriculture Ministry.

China is the third biggest export market for European wines and the fastest growing, as the rising middle class enjoys the pleasures and status of sipping fine Bordeaux or quaffing Rioja.

About 15 Chinese individuals or businesses have bought wine-growing properties in Bordeaux and investors also want to develop luxury tourism in the region, which they think will be the next fad as Chinese wealth pours into Europe.

Jim Boyce, who runs the wine blog grapewallofchina.com, said Chinese manufacturers have been upset about alleged dumping for a while. "The big issue was all this Spanish wine flowing in here at incredibly low prices," he said.

In Madrid, a representative of the Spanish Wine Federation said the Chinese move was a potentially serious blow to one of the few bright spots in a country stuck in deep recession since a housing bubble burst in 2008, decimating its economy.

"The saddest thing about all this is that if proceedings are opened and anti-dumping measures such as import tariffs applied, it means a sector that is doing really well will be dragged into a trade war that has nothing to do with it," she said.

Spain abstained on the solar panel duties. Under EU rules that is counted as a vote in favor.

The EU is China's most important trading partner, while for the EU, China is second only to the United States. Chinese exports of goods to the bloc totaled 290 billion euros ($376 billion) last year, with 144 billion euros going the other way.

Wine sales are only a fraction of overall exports to the rising Asian economic powerhouse but the move raises the risk of more tit-for-tat trade barriers.

The EU now has 31 trade investigations underway, 18 of them involving China. The largest to date is that into 21 billion euros of imports from China of solar panels, cells and wafers.

The EU says it has evidence that Chinese firms are selling solar panels below cost - a practice known as dumping. But the initial duty of 11.8 percent announced on Tuesday by European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht was far below the average 47 percent that had been planned.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said it took note of the lower initial rate and called on the EU to "show more sincerity and flexibility to find a resolution both sides can accept through consultations".

 

[Serpiente_Plyskeen]

Emerging markets displace Europe as fulcrum of world risk - Telegraph

Emerging markets displace Europe as fulcrum of world risk

There is a wicked double edge to the emerging-market boom that has so enthralled us for the past decade. The economies of these rising powers are by now big enough to shake the entire world if they come off the rails.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

8 :17PM BST 05 Jun 2013

Some antiestéticared this might happen in 1998 when Russia defaulted and East Asia’s currency crisis span out of control, a drama precipitated by a rising dollar. Contagion spread to western Europe, causing the pre-euro “convergence play” to snap back violently.

The US hedge fund Long Term Capital Management was caught $100bn (£65bn) short as bond spreads surged in Club Med, and equities plunged. The threat of a chain reaction was serious enough to force emergency rate cuts by the Fed. The crisis abated.

Asia’s economy is a much bigger beast today, and so is the emerging market (EM) universe. These countries now account for half of global investment. Gross fixed-capital formation last year by EM powers in the G20 bloc was $6.7 trillion, 48pc of the total. China alone spent $3.85 trillion, eclipsing America at $2.5 trillion – even with the US shale boom.

The Chinese figure will surprise nobody who has seen the forest of high-construction cranes in Chengdu or Chongqing, deep in the interior, or passed through railway stations of “Tier III” cities that reduce Waterloo to Lilliputian size.

“It is the emerging world that is driving global expansion, so we have to watch very carefully for signs of a turn in the cycle,” said Julian Callow from Barclays.

Indeed we do. My antiestéticar is that a China-led BRICS shock will transmit a wave of deflation across the planet, pushing the West over the edge into another downward leg of trade depression.

The eurozone polity cannot withstand such a blow. Youth unemployment is above 40pc in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, and “nominal” GDP is contracting across the four countries, meaning that high debt is rising on a shrinking base.

Another twist of the deflation knife will be lethal.

America is in better shape, but it is hovering near stall speed. The ISM manufacturing gauge fell below the “boom/bust line” of 50 in May. The most draconian fiscal tightening in half a century is starting to bite.

Whether or not the EM slowdown is an inflexion point, or just a refreshing pause, is now a neuralgic issue. What we know is that manufacturing PMI indices are flirting with contraction across much of Asia, with Latin America and Africa not far behind.

China’s PMI index turned negative in May, despite 20pc credit growth in the first quarter. The extra GDP generated by each yuan of credit has dropped to a ratio of 0.17 from 0.85 four years ago. The debt cycle is exhausted.

Societe Generale’s Beijing analyst Wei Yao warns that China may be on the verge of a “Minsky Moment”, the tipping point when the debt pyramid collapses under its own weight. “The debt snowball is getting bigger and bigger, without contributing to real activity,” she said.

She claimed the debt service ratio of companies has reached a “shockingly high” 30pc of GDP – the typical threshold for financial crises. “The logical conclusion has to be that a non-negligible share of the corporate sector is not able to repay either principal or interest, which qualifies as Ponzi financing," she said.

The scale is huge. Fitch Ratings says total credit has grown from $9 trillion to $23 trillion in four years. The increase alone is equal to the US banking system.

The EM bulls retort that China and the rising powers are protected this time by $10 trillion of foreign reserves, 80pc of all sovereign gold and currency holdings. This will indeed shield them against a currency attack. There will be no exact replay of 1998, when debts were in dollars and fixed exchange pegs blew up.

Yet it will not protect them against the deflationary shock as the Fed withdraws global liquidity, or against their own credit busts. These reserves are a Maginot Line. If China tries to repatriate the money to prop up its own economy, it would push up the yuan, aggravating the contractionary squeeze.

Nor are dollar and euro debts trivial, though this time they are private. The IMF’s José Viñals said foreign borrowing “has been growing at a rapid pace, exposing them to currency risk and leverage”.

Standard & Poor’s said EM firms raised a record $301bn in fresh debt this year to April, up 42pc from last year.

The bearish notes are coming thick and fast. HSBC is liquidating much of its EM debt and retreating into US Treasuries, “the least bad apple in the barrel”, antiestéticaring that the global credit cycle has rolled over.

“We are out of virtually all our EM bonds. It is the end of the bull market," said Benoit Anne from Societe Generale. He is expecting “real money” investors to amow hedge funds out of the door. “When and if this kicks off, it will fuel another massive wave of correction,” he said.

Behind the fading EM story is a relentless loss of competitiveness as reform slackens and productivity growth slows. Nowhere is that clearer than in Brazil, left high and dry with a half-reformed, dirigiste economy when iron ore prices crashed. It faces stagflation, with growth of 0.9pc last year. Manufacturing output is down 3pc below its pre-Lehman peak.

The stock of foreign capital flows into emerging markets has soared from $4 trillion to $8 trillion since 2008, a big enough sum to cause global ructions if the mood turns. That has clearly begun in such countries as South Africa and Turkey, where there is a toxic mix of political risk and current account deficits above 6pc of GDP.

What has set the retreat in motion is antiestéticar that the Fed will turn off the credit spigot, draining the dollar liquidity that fuelled the booms. This is what happened under the Volcker Fed in the early 1980s, triggering the Latin American crisis.

You might well ask why the Fed’s Ben Bernanke would “taper” monthly bond purchases (QE) if there is such a risk of global deflation. But the Fed can be insular at times and is clearly having to pick between poisons.

The latest minutes of its Federal Advisory Council warn of an “unsustainable bubble” if QE continues, and suggest the policy is doing more harm than good in any case. The criticisms are getting under the skin of Fed insiders. Even the Boston Fed’s ultra-dove Eric Rosengren now talks of tapering soon.

Mr Bernanke will not be deterred by a shake-out on Wall Street, for that is what he wants – to curb excess and rein in moral hazard. The rest of the world can only pray that he does not push his point too far.

China revisa sus datos de exportaciones después del escándalo de las diferencias con HK, Taiwan y demás - ZH comenta, muy apropiadamente, que si corrigen el dato que reconocen que es falso, eso quiere decir que van a tener que revisar a la baja ese +7.7% del PIB que anunciaron también...
China Export Gains Seen Halved With Fake-Data Crackdown - Bloomberg

China Export Gains Seen Halved With Fake-Data Crackdown
By Bloomberg News - 2013-06-06T07 :38 :56Z

China’s crackdown on fake export invoices used to disguise money flows is probably cutting the nation’s trade figures, revealing subdued global demand that will weigh on economic growth.

Outbound shipments may have grown 7.1 percent in May from a year earlier, less than half the previous month’s reported 14.7 percent, based on the median estimate of 34 economists ahead of data due June 8. Import growth probably slowed to 6.9 percent from April’s 16.8 percent, a Bloomberg News survey showed.

Successful deterrence of fraudulent data through regulatory scrutiny of companies and banks would help restore trust in trade figures, while more accurate numbers may also highlight the urgency for Premier Li Keqiang to shift growth toward domestic consumption. Weakness in exports could also test Li’s reluctance to add stimulus to support the expansion of the world’s second-biggest economy.

“The crackdown from China’s foreign-exchange authorities on fake invoicing will bring the inflated export growth down to the real trend, which is single digits,” said Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong, who projects export gains of 5 percent for May. More broadly, China’s economy “is weakening but is not collapsing,” said Zhang, who previously worked at the International Monetary Fund.

Then MSCI Asia Pacific Index of stocks was down 1.2 percent as of 4:19 p.m. in Tokyo today.

Inflation Figures

The trade data from the General Administration of Customs will be amowed June 9 by National Bureau of Statistics releases on prices, industrial production, retail sales and investment that are forecast to show little change from April growth figures. New yuan loans may have increased to 850 billion yuan ($139 billion) from April’s 792.9 billion yuan in People’s Bank of China numbers due over the next week, based on the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index of stocks has declined for six days, the longest losing streak since June 2012, amid concern that economic growth is losing steam. The gauge lost 1.3 percent today, the most in six weeks.

Economists in a separate survey last month said January-April export growth was overstated by 4 to 13 percentage points. Shipments abroad probably rose 8.5 percent in the first four months of 2013 from a year earlier, based on the median estimate of 15 economists, less than half the official 17.4 percent number. Imports may have gained 8.25 percent, according to 14 analysts’ median estimate, compared with the government’s 10.6 percent figure.

PMI Gauge

The figures compare with South Korea’s reported 1 percent increase in exports in the first five months of 2013 and a 1.3 percent January-April gain reported by Taiwan. China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (SHCOMP) for manufacturing has shown new export orders contracting for four of the past five months.

Slower growth in last month’s official trade data may reflect measures announced by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange to crack down on speculative funds entering the country disguised as payments for trade.

The currency regulator said May 6 that it will send out warning notices to companies whose goods and capital flows don’t match as well as those bringing large amounts of cash into China. SAFE on May 22 told banks to improve checks of customer documents related to special trade zones amid speculation that the areas have been exploited to mask money inflows as exports.

Double-counting in the zones probably continued to inflate May’s figures, said Steve Wang, chief China economist in Hong Kong for Reorient Financial Markets Ltd., an investment bank backed by the Chinese government. While exports probably rose 9.3 percent in May, the true rate may be close to 4.6 percent excluding distortions from double-counting in the zones, Wang said.

Fraud Probe

The customs administration didn’t respond to faxed questions yesterday from Bloomberg News or to other inquiries on the issue since it held a press briefing on April 10. Zheng Yuesheng, an agency spokesman, said at the time that China is investigating possible fraud behind first-quarter export growth and that the practice of false trade declarations “does exist but is definitely not mainstream.”

Some Chinese exports face other issues. The European Union this week said tariffs of as much as 67.9 percent could be imposed on solar panels from China in the largest EU commercial dispute of its kind, affecting Chinese companies like Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Wuxi Suntech Power Co. and Changzhou Trina Solar Energy Co.

Reserve Ratio

The slowdown may be too much for the government to stomach, said Hu Yifan, chief economist at Haitong International Securities Co. in Hong Kong, who previously worked at the World Bank. Authorities may start “active supportive policies,” including a cut this month in banks’ reserve-requirement ratio, said Hu, the only analyst surveyed to project a May decline in exports.

China’s gross domestic product expanded a less-than-estimated 7.7 percent in the first quarter and analysts last month trimmed forecasts for the April-June period to a median projection of 7.8 percent. The government in March set a goal of 7.5 percent for the year.

“The pressure on the Chinese leadership may grow to do more to boost domestic demand,” such as faster approvals of investment projects, said Sun Junwei, a Beijing-based economist at HSBC Holdings Plc. “The government doesn’t want another stimulus package, but it won’t like a deepening slowdown either.”

Around the world today, U.K. house prices rose for a fourth month in May as government measures to help the property market boosted demand, according to Halifax, the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc. Other releases today include U.S. jobless claims and factory orders in Germany.

The Bank of England will probably decide to hold its target for bond purchases at 375 billion pounds ($577 billion), according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The European Central Bank will keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent today, according to a survey of analysts.

Y parece que Gabón empieza a considerar la nacionalización de las inversiones chinas en su territorio:
Gabon seeks to reclaim Chinese oil assets - FT.com

 

[Da Grappla Reloaded]

Los jovenlandeses van cayéndose del <del>Cerezo Milenario en Flor</del> guindo

China’s Role in Africa Under New Scrutiny as Ghana Expels Miners

While African nations welcome the investment and job creation that Chinese investment brings, leaders from Botswana’s Ian Khama to Nigerian central bank chief Lamido Sanusi, seen here, have questioned whether the relationship has benefited Africa as much as it has China.

Dozens of Chinese nationals face expulsion from Ghana for illegal gold mining and prostitution in a case that’s drawn new focus on China’s rush to tap African resources and ramp up investment on the continent.

Ghana will expel 166 Chinese citizens who were detained over the last week in the country’s gold-producing regions, Francis Palmdeti, head of public affairs for Ghana’s Immigration Service, said in a phone interview yesterday. Many lacked resident permits, he said.

The arrests highlight how thousands of ordinary Chinese have traveled to Africa in search of opportunity as China’s state companies tap the continent’s natural resources to power the world’s second-biggest economy. That’s strained ties as African leaders voice new caution over investment from China, the continent’s biggest trading partner since 2009.

“If you have gold, then Chinese want to go there to mine it -- it’s like the American gold rush,” He Wenping, director of the African Research Section at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said by phone from Beijing. “Many times they are not clear about Ghana’s laws since there are middlemen who bring them over and help them sign a contract.”

Trade between Africa and China doubled since 2007 to more than $200 billion and Chinese investment stands at $20 billion, according to Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest lender.

While African nations welcome the investment and job creation that Chinese investment brings, leaders from Botswana’s Ian Khama to Nigerian central bank chief Lamido Sanusi have questioned whether the relationship has benefited Africa as much as it has China.
Wake Up

Africa needs to “wake up” to the realities of the relationship, Sanusi wrote in the Financial Times in March. The Chinese sell manufactured goods to Africa and buy resources, which was the essence of colonialism, he wrote.

In February, Zambia revoked the mining license for a coal mine after workers rioted there in November and killed a Chinese manager. The mine, owned by a family of Chinese citizens, failed to comply with at least 15 legal provisions, the country’s Mines Minister Yamfwa Mukanga said.

China is also facing competition in Africa from other nations. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged 3.2 trillion yen ($33 billion) in public and private support to Africa during a conference in Tokyo on June 1-3.

The Chinese county of Shanglin issued a warning yesterday against gold mining in Ghana and said it will help the miners return home by paying for their plane tickets, Xinhua News Agency reported. About 12,000 people from Shanglin county have engaged in gold mining in Ghana, Africa’s second-largest gold producer, since 2006, according to Xinhua.
Illegal Mining

“After Ghana’s government began to manage illegal gold-mining, China’s embassy in Ghana has several times requested law-enforcement authorities enforce laws in a civilized manner and stop certain individuals from robbing Chinese personnel,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a briefing today.

China is investing heavily in the country’s resource sector since oil reserves were discovered offshore in 2007. In August 2011, Ghana approved a $3 billion loan, the biggest in the country’s history, from the China Development Bank for projects including a natural-gas plant.

The influx of illegal Chinese miners has angered Ghanaian farming communities who say their land and sources of drinking water are threatened by their activities. The Chinese use high-end industrial machinery including excavators to dig while Ghanaian small-scale miners mostly use shovels and pickaxes.

The Chinese are welcome as long as they “come through the regulatory framework,” Isaac Kojo Abraham, a senior public relations officer at Ghana’s Minerals Commission, said by phone. “If they come to do illegal mining, the nation loses the fees and taxes they would have paid for their activities.”

China