China: Fragile, Handle With Care
(Export Development Canada – Peter G. Hall)
For all its oft-repeated recession-resilience, China’s economy is slowing. Forecasts are fading fast, the latest coming from China’s leaders themselves. On Monday at the National People’s Congress, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao lowered the 2012 growth target to 7.5%, a half-point below both the long-standing official target and EDC’s current forecast. Is it tranquilizer time again?
One look at recent GDP data, and the deceleration looks very gradual. Since the final quarter of 2010, year-to-year growth has edged down from 9.8% to 8.9% in the final three months of 2011. At face value, that’s still an impressive number. Trouble is, it embodies a lot of stuff that happened over the course of the whole year. More recent numbers are less certain, with annualized growth in the 8-9% range. Even so, the numbers square well with official targets, and remain strong. Read more or watch the video here.
Date: March 9, 2012
