China

Please see below key recent developments concerning trade:

See also:

• What's Changing? - Economics
• What's Changing? - Emerging Markets

March 2019

• The US Commerce Department announced that, despite Trump's pledge to win a fairer deal on trade for American workers by imposing, or threatening to impose, tariffs on foreign-made goods, the US posted its highest-ever merchandise trade deficit ($891.2 billion) for 2018.

February 2019

Please see below selected recent privacy-related change.

See also:

• Halcyon Privacy Headlines

January 2019

• Further reading:
  • Privacy and Cybersecurity Are Converging. Here’s Why That Matters for People and for Companies - Harvard Business Review

December 2018

Please see below selected recent travel-related change.

See also: Halcyon Travel Headlines

December 2018

Please see below selected recent business intelligence about Asia Pacific.

June 2015

• The Financial Times published an FT Focus - Asia special edition.

• According to BankofAmericaMerrilLynch, for Asia Pacific’s most influential CFOs, 2015 will be a year of growth but will require a heightened level of courage, commitment and care to deliver on expectations. Change will be inevitable. Challenges will be multi-faceted. Risk and market volatility will remain a reality. But with an actively managed finance strategy and a clear understanding of the diverse headwinds, opportunities will materialise. These are some of the projections of Asia Pacific’s leading CFOs.

40%: The percentage of patients reported to have responded to one of the most advanced CRISPR cancer therapy studies to be tested in China. China is far ahead of the US in CRISPR cancer studies due to its less stringent approval requirements, but the US and Europe are set to see their first human trials of the gene-editing technique this year. With potentially transformative implications across medicine, agriculture, and even chemical products, CB Insights' 5,200-word CRISPR deep dive unpacks the science behind the technology, its applications, controversies it’s stirred up, and where CRISPR may take us next. 

Please see below selected recent intelligence about China. This is a synthesis of major recent developments at corporates, business schools, thinktanks, media, commentators, and other key influencers.

Q3 (July-August-September) 2016 

• The former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund warned that a slowdown in China is the greatest threat to the global economy, claiming that a "hard landing" for one of the main engines of global growth could not be ruled out.
• However, China’s industrial profits jumped the most in three years. They rose 19.5% from a year ago to 534.8 billion yuan ($80.2 billion), according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The data suggests further stabilisation in manufacturing and a greater ability of companies to pay off debts.
• Indeed, China’s economy grew by 6.7% in the second quarter, the same as in the previous three months and a healthier pace than many had expected given the country’s stock market crash and depreciation of the yuan. Investment in infrastructure has surged and personal consumption has been strong.
• Although there is some suggestion that Chinese private sector is losing confidence in economic prospects, China’s producer price index was its least bad in four years. Government data tracking the cost of manufactured goods out the factory gate showed prices declined just 0.8% through the month of August, indicating that the flagging economy might be stabilizing. Consumer price inflation climbed 1.3%, slightly below July’s increase.
• Yet China’s July economic data provided more evidence of a slowdown. Investment grew at its slowest pace in more than 16 years in the January-July period. Retail sales in July increased 10.2%, versus a forecast 10.5% and down from 10.6% in June. Industrial output for the month rose 6% from a year earlier, slowing from 6.2% in June and missing the forecast of 6.1%.
• China’s “One Belt, One Road” project aims to make central Asia more connected to the world, yet even before the initiative was formally announced China had helped to redraw the energy map of the region. However, China is not the only investor in central Asian connectivity. Multilateral financial institutions, such as the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank have long been investing in the region’s infrastructure. The Kazakh government has its own $9bn stimulus plan, directing money from its sovereign wealth fund to infrastructure investment. Other countries, including Turkey, the US, and the EU have also made improving Eurasian connectivity a part of their foreign policy. 

June 2016

• China wants a role at the global economic governance table, commensurate with its size and trajectory. Existing bodies have been slow to reform. In a new paper, the Royal Institute for International Relations, argued that “In areas where the overhaul of existing bodies proves difficult, China has begun to back the creation of parallel nstitutions tailored to the needs of emerging powers.”

Please see below selected pre-2016 intelligence about China. This is a synthesis of major recent developments at corporates, business schools, thinktanks, media, commentators, and other key influencers.

December 2015

• In 2016 China will once again be hugely important in determining the path of the world economy and the direction of capital flows. But this time the story will not be about a slowing economy. As recent industrial production numbers indicate, measures to stimulate the economy are having an impact. Investment is picking up in response to stronger infrastructure investment, especially from local governments, reflecting the easing of financing constraints on them. State-owned enterprises have also been investing more heavily.

• Equities across the globe were undermined by losses in mainland China after a near 3 per cent drop on the Shanghai exchange triggered fresh commodity losses. As many markets reopened following the Christmas weekend break, China’s Shanghai Composite fell 2.6 per cent after weak industrial profit data for November dashed hopes of an end-of-year rally. The data, released on Sunday, showed profits earned by Chinese industrial companies fell 1.4 per cent last month - a sixth-consecutive month of year-on-year declines.

• China’s activity data was stronger than expected in November, with factory output growth picking up to a five-month high, signalling that a flurry of stimulus measures from Beijing may have put a floor under a fragile economy. Still, analysts believe more policy steps are needed to weather nagging headwinds from a cooling property market, risks from high domestic debt levels, and weak global demand as financial markets brace for interest rate rises by the US Federal Reserve.

• Meanwhile, foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland rose 1.9 percent year on year to 64.9 billion yuan ($10.4 billion) in November, the Ministry of Commerce said. The growth slowed from a 4.2 percent rise in October. or the first 11 months, FDI, which excludes investment in the financial sector, stood at 704.3 billion yuan, up 7.9 percent from the same period last year.

• Activity in China's services sector expanded at a slower pace in November as new orders weakened. The Caixin/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 51.2 in November from a three-month high in October of 52.0. A reading above 50 points signifies growth on a monthly basis, while one below that points to a contraction.New business rose at a slower pace of 51.1 - down from 52.9 in October - showing weaker domestic and external demand while employment in services rose only marginally, with the smallest increase in three months.

• China's foreign trade dropped 4.5%year on year to 2.16 trillion yuan (337 billion U.S. dollars) in November, the ninth-consecutive monthly decline. China’s foreign-exchange hoard meanwhile fell in November to its lowest level in more than two years, reigniting concerns about Beijing’s ability to stem the outflow of capital from the world’s second-largest economy.

• A report by Standard & Poor’s warned that creditworthiness at China’s big state firms has worsened in recent years. The ratio of gross debt to earnings has increased to more than five on average.

• The latest snapshot of manufacturing activity by the Chinese Federation for Logistics and Purchasing showed activity slipping for the fourth month in a row, falling further below the 50 no-change mark to 49.6 in November from 49.8 the previous month. Economists at ANZ Bank said the data could prompt yet another rate cut from China's policymakers.

Please see below selected pre-2016 intelligence about the Asia Pacific region. This is a synthesis of major recent developments at competitors, business schools, thinktanks, media, commentators, and other key influencers in our external environment.

Asia-Pacific is a region of huge diversity, not only culturally and geographically, but economically too. Japan is a member of the G7 and a world leader in automotive and technology. Singapore competes with London and New York as a global financial centre. Australia and New Zealand are sometimes treated as a region in their own right due to both geography and culture - it takes over 12 hours to fly from Delhi to Sydney and history ties them more to the UK and US - but they are increasingly connected to Asia through trade.

December 2015

• In The Future of Asia Pacific, Grant Thornton drew on interviews from our International Business Report and data from the IMF, UN and Economist Intelligence Unit to explore the opportunities and challenges for business growth in Asia-Pacific. The slowdown in China, regional tensions and ageing populations emerge as key threats to regional growth prospects, while businesses are excited by the Trans-Pacific Partnership and increased ASEAN cooperation.

• Australia’s GDP growth strengthened in the September quarter, to 0.9% in the quarter and 2.5% over the year, up from 0.3% in the quarter and 2.0% over the year to June. Australia’s long-run average annual GDP growth rate is around 3.1%.

• Official figures released just three weeks ago indicating that Japan had dipped into recession were revised to show that the economy had grown. An initial estimate recorded GDP contracting at an annualised rate of 0.8% in the third quarter, but updated numbers on business investment suggest that the economy instead grew by 1%.

Please see below selected recent intelligence about the Asia Pacific region. This is a synthesis of major recent developments at competitors, business schools, thinktanks, media, commentators, and other key influencers in our external environment.

Asia-Pacific is a region of huge diversity, not only culturally and geographically, but economically too. Japan is a member of the G7 and a world leader in automotive and technology. Singapore competes with London and New York as a global financial centre. Australia and New Zealand are sometimes treated as a region in their own right due to both geography and culture - it takes over 12 hours to fly from Delhi to Sydney and history ties them more to the UK and US - but they are increasingly connected to Asia through trade.

See also:

• ASEAN Connections: how mega-regional trade and investment initiatives in Asia will shape business strategy in ASEAN and beyond - The Economist
• Outlook for Key Emerging Asian Markets - Economist Intelligence Unit

• Please note that, due to the disproportionately high number of stories involving China, we cover these in a separate blog post - please see On China's economic uncertainty.

June 2016

• The Australian economy grew 1.1 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of the year, trumping expectations. That took the annual rate to 3.1 per cent, compared to expectations of 2.8 per cent.

• On the global economic radar, Bangladesh has long been overshadowed by its larger neighbour in the region, India. However, with a population exceeding 160 million, Bangladesh has been steadily building its economic strength and is now emerging as an attractive frontier growth market in South Asia. This presents a sizeable opportunity for organisations seeking to expand their global footprint and further establish a presence in the South Asia region. In this article, we explore some of the economic growth drivers for Bangladesh and potential opportunities for global companies to tap into. Read more about Bangladesh's recent economic growth and investment potential in PwC's Growth Markets Centre's latest blog.

• Japan has one of the highest levels of public debt to GDP of any country in the world. In 2015 the ratio stood at 229%, compared with 74% for the US and 19% for China. Since Japan has a shrinking population and almost no economic growth, one wonders how this can ever be paid off. On top of which, the Economist Intelligence Unit expects the ratio to keep rising, to 253% of GDP by the end of the decade.

• The Malaysian economy expanded by 4.2% year-on-year in the March quarter, moderating from a 4.5% growth in the previous period but slightly above market expectations of a 4.1% expansion. It is the weakest growth since the first quarter of 2013.

• South Korea’s economy grew in the first quarter by just a shade more than initially revealed. GDP grew by 0.5 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of this year, up from the initial estimate of 0.4 per cent. That was enough to bump up the yearly rate by 0.1 percentage points to 2.8 per cent. Economists, on average, expected no change.

According to the World Bank's Global Development Horizons 2011 - Multipolarity: The New Global Economy, six countries will lead global economic growth, expanding on average by 4.7% annually between 2011 and 2025.