The Chinese government has announced a trillion-yuan boost (about $1.4 billion) to domestic spending, breaking its long-standing limit of a deficit no larger than 3 percent of GDP. That will dig the annual budget hole deeper than it has been in 30 years, according to figures cited by Bloomberg.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, in China last week and the two expressed interest in building their no-limits partnership and their visions for a “multipolar world” not led by any one country.
China exported 6.2 percent fewer goods in September than in August, notching the fifth consecutive month of declines, although the rate of decline slowed from 8.8 percent the month before. Imports also shrank by 6.2 percent, according to customs data reported by the Associated Press.
With their country facing an extended period of economic uncertainty, well-off Chinese are sneaking cash out of the country with the help of people they have never met or even spoken to, using a system known as hawala.
Evergrande, China’s flamboyant, overleveraged property developer whose defaults in September 2021 set off a chain of collapses across the sector, announced last week it still owes tens of billions of dollars to contractors, lenders, and suppliers and that its chairman is under criminal investigation.
Sinopac, China’s largest oil company, has calculated that the world’s gasoline demand has peaked as electric vehicles (EVs) have aggressively asserted their place in the global vehicle market.
The U.S. State Department is concerned that China is using social media and news outlets to promote disinformation that can change public opinion.
China’s economic crisis has emboldened reformers who argue for structural change to the country’s economy, challenging other officials who contend that stimulus spending will put China’s productivity back on track, Reuters reported.
About 24 percent of office space in 18 major Chinese cities sat empty in June, compared to 18.2 percent in the U.S., real estate services firm CBRE reported. In that month, the national value of office rents fell 7 percent below that of 2019.
Last month, economic activity picked up in China’s retail and travel industries as well as at computer chip and smartphone factories, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has reported.