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great news....EAST will dominate WEST once again in near future after centuries
 
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well done china...suddenly everything is working fine in our region..first - Pakistan's foreign reserve reached $15b and now China with 11.9% growth...:cheers:
 
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GDP surges by 11.9% amid fears of overheating

* Source: Global Times
* [04:47 April 16 2010]
* Comments

By Yin Hang

The country's economic growth rate surged to 11.9 percent in the first quarter of the year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday, prompting fears of an overheated economy and qestions regarding the withdrawal of the massive stimulus package.

The gross domestic product (GDP) in the first three months totaled 8.07 trillion yuan ($1.19 trillion), the NBS said, attributing the fastest quarterly rate of expansion since 2007 to last year's low comparison base and the government's stimulus.

"China's economy welcomed a strong start at the beginning of the year, showing that overall economic development is rising in full swing," Li Xiaochao, the NBS spokesman, said Thursday.

The surge in economic growth was up from just over 6 percent in the same quarter a year ago and up 10.7 percent in the final

quarter of 2009. It was supported by a 19.6 percent rise in industrial output over a year earlier, a 25.6 percent jump in investment in factories and other fixed assets, and, most controversially, a 35.1 percent leap in investment in the real estate market, the NBS said.

"The growth rate surpasses 10 percent. It can be seen as an indication of overheating," said Tian Yun, vice president of the China Macro Economics Institute, adding that the growth momentum was not largely generated from just the market.

Zhuang Jian, senior macroeconomics officer with the Asian Development Bank, however, was reluctant to draw a conclusion of overheating.

"Last year's GDP figure, when the economy was reeling from the world financial downturn, established a low baseline for comparison. The ratcheting up of investment and large domestic demand drove up the figure. The figure gives no hint of an economy overheating at all," Zhuang said.

Asian growth

The figures China unveiled cap a good week for the Asian economy. Singapore's economy grew by 13.1 percent, its fastest rate in at least 35 years, in the first three months of 2010. The Bank of Korea raised its economic growth expectations on April 9 to a rise of 5.2 percent in 2010, compared with its central bank's anticipated 4.6 percent expansion in December.

In the wake of the GDP growth spurt, however, Singapore revalued its currency to head off inflation after year-on-year economic growth surged.

The revaluation may prompt policymakers in China, Indonesia and South Korea to start withdrawing monetary stimulus as economic growth in the region outpaces the rest of the world, according to Bloomberg.

In response to the speculation, NBS spokesman Li said it is necessary to retain the consistency and stability of China's macroeconomic policies, despite the stimulus package spurring economic growth.

"China still faces uncertainties amid the recovery of the world economy. The domestic economy is facing many obstacles and problems," Li cautioned, and hinted that the stimulus package will not be withdrawn temporarily with challenges such as heavy drought still facing China.

Wei Fengchun, a macroeconomic analyst with Beijing-based CITIC Securities, explained how economic development mode transformation may be in need of the government stimulus.

"Outward-oriented economic development may come to an end, and China's economic development will have to turn to rely on inward momentumsupporting," Wei told the Shanghai Securities News.

Economists predicted that, unlike the trend of last year, the GDP growth will start the year soaring gradually shrink in the second and third quarters.

Li Xunlei, deputy chairman of the Research Institute of Guotai Junan Securities, insisted that to raise the interest rates is not necessary considering the GDP is likely to shrink in the next three quarters.

"The GDP has hit its highest point now. I believe it will fall in the upcoming three quarters, when the raised interest rate may hurt the stability of the economy," Li told hexun.com.

Zhuang, by contrast, argues that pressure on raising interest rates will be intensified, leading to higher inflation.

Currency questions

By way of contributing more to pulling the world back from recession, some economists suggested a prompt revaluation of China's currency.

"The yuan's stability and China's stimulus package made an enormous contribution to global stability in the aftermath of the crisis," said Glenn Maguire of Societe Generale in Hong Kong. "But now that China's economy is growing by 12 percent, it's time for China to share some of that growth with the rest of the world via appreciating its exchange rate."

The commerce ministry promptly rebuked this suggestion, arguing that the US is pressuring China to reevaluate its currency out of self-interest.

"Do not let the yuan's exchange rate issue become the scapegoat of US domestic economic problems, including its unemployment," said Yao Jian, ministry spokesman.

China will keep the yuan stable, not only to help exporters weather the world economic downturn, but also to check the inflow of hot money, Yao said.

Yao sounded a cautious note on the outlook for China's exports. Net exports shaved 1.2 percentage points off first-quarter headline growth of 11.9 percent, year-on-year.

"External demand has not shown a clear rebound, which is expected to lead to a slow recovery in China's exports," Yao said.

Liang Chen and agencies contributed to this story.



PBOC pledges to curb soaring housing prices
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-04-16 23:27

BEIJING - The People's Bank of China, the central bank, said late Friday it would strictly implement the State Council's policies to rein in rapidly climbing property prices.


In a statement posted on its website, the central bank said it had urged all its branches and subsidiaries to enhance risk management in granting housing mortgages and to strictly carry out measures announced by the State Council on Thursday after an executive meeting.

The Cabinet announced a series of steps to make it more expensive for people to take out mortgages on investment properties, including raising mortgage rates and down payment requirements.

The Cabinet's move came one day after the statistics authorities said China's property prices in 70 major cities rose 11.7 percent in March year on year, compared with February's 10.7 percent reading.

Earlier Friday, the country's banking regulator urged banks to take market and regional disparities into consideration when deciding home loan interest rates.
 
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bubble economy


Global Economy's Next Threat: China's Real Estate Bubble
By CHARLES HUGH SMITH Posted 9:30 AM 01/05/10 Economy
Comments: 65 Print
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We might be tempted to envy China's spectacularly resilient real estate boom: After sagging in the global financial meltdown of 2008, property values in China's urban centers skyrocketed in 2009. Shanghai's Pudong district, for example, experienced a 57% rise in a matter of months.

By comparison, residential real estate in the U.S. is up 3.4% on average from its bottom in May, but still almost 30% below its peak in April 2006.

However, those admiring China's reflated housing bubble might be careful what they wish for, as the new real estate bubble in China is even more precarious than the one which imploded in 2008.

The popping of China's current housing bubble -- considered inevitable by regional experts such as Andy Xie -- could have widespread consequences. If housing turns down in China, China's growth could slow or even decline. And since the entire world is looking to China to lead global growth, then that could spell major trouble for the "global economy is recovering" story.

China's Stimulus Dwarfs America's

The reflation of China's real estate bubble has a number of causes, and the most obvious one is that nation's stupendous $586 billion stimulus, which was packaged with efforts to promote real estate lending and development to boost growth. According to China's central bank, new home mortgages in the first nine months were quadruple the amount borrowed a year earlier.

In terms of GDP -- China's GDP is $3.3 trillion compared to $13.8 trillion for the U.S .-- China's $586 billion stimulus is three times as large as America's $787 billion stimulus. China's stimulus spending is a heart-pounding 17.8% of their GDP, as opposed to America's comparatively modest 5.7% of GDP.

Even if we use the CIA Factbook's estimate of China's GDP in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), China's stimulus is still almost triple the U.S. government's stimulus (5.5% U.S. versus 14.4% China).

Real Estate Bubble Worries Central Government

Analysts in China are concerned that this tremendous rise in construction, lending and speculative buying -- housing starts nationwide rose 194% in 2009 -- is blowing a bubble that could burst in 2010, taking down everyone who jumped into the game in 2009: homeowners, banks, developers, stock markets, and local governments.

The central government is also concerned. In late December, China Premier Wen Jiabao made a widely publicized comment that "property prices have risen too quickly." He vowed to impose new limits on speculative borrowing, such as raising the deposit requirements to purchase raw land to 50%.

Central government efforts to stimulate the property market included tax breaks, smaller down-payment requirements, lower loan rates for first-time buyers, and vastly increased bank lending. In an effort to lower the boom on speculative flipping -- buying and selling of properties within a short time span -- China's State Council announced changes to tax breaks for home sales by individuals.

Macro Picture Still Gloomy

Lost in the euphoric frenzy of China's real estate market is the glum macroeconomic backdrop. China's overall economy depends heavily on exports; from January to July 2009, China's exports dropped by 22 percent -- a major hit to the nation's income stream.

Despite the surge in domestic construction and infrastructure projects resulting from the stimulus spending, China's exports are still declining. And too much money has flowed into new and unneeded factories which are now idling at low capacity.

The present housing boom also has some serious macroeconomic headwinds. A typical 1,000-square-foot apartment in Beijing now costs about 80 times the average annual income of the city's residents, wildly out of line with the historic levels of three or four times annual income.

This speculative fever has been fed by a number of factors which will sound eerily familiar to Americans bruised by the U.S. housing bubble's rise and fall: low interest rates, official promotion of bank lending, and tax break galore for new buyers.

Unlike in the U.S., local governments in China are major players in real estate development because they sell land leases to developers for hefty sums. According to Chinese economists, up to half of all local government revenue comes from selling state-owned land to private developers.

Perhaps most dangerous, about 90% of the new construction is aimed at the luxury market, which is unaffordable to the average Chinese household. (This should sound familiar to residents of New York and other major international cities.) As a result, thousands of new homes and condos are sitting empty, purchased as investments not as places to live. The empty new city of Ordos reveals just how far the speculative fever has progressed.

This disconnect between massive overbuilding of luxury homes and what average households can actually afford raises the future risks of public anger and social discord.

China's Housing Market Is Different

To fully understand why China's housing market has ballooned into a new and increasingly risky bubble, we have to understand that it's not just government policies that have created a runaway speculative market; other financial and cultural issues are also at work.

Patrick Chovanec, an associate professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing, China, recently described a number of these key issues. (I can confirm these from first-hand experience in China, and from our friends who have owned condos in China for many years and live there part-time.) The key issues include:

1. There are no property taxes in China, so the costs of carrying speculative (empty) homes is very low in comparison to the U.S.

2. Property values have, with brief interruptions, risen for decades, so the average Chinese household considers real estate a much safer bet against inflation than the stock market.

3. Until recently, households had few investment alternatives to a simple low-yield savings account. The incredible boom and bust in the Chinese stock market in 2006-08 -- akin to the dot-com mania in NASDAQ stocks in 1998-2000 in the U.S. -- left many Chinese investors wary of the stock market. As a result, many view owning investment properties as akin to "money in a savings account," that is, a low-risk, long-term investment.

4. Though the central government is trying to suppress speculation, it is aiming at the wrong target. Flipping property is simply not common in China; the overall number of sales of existing homes is very low by U.S. standards. The speculation arises from the easing of lending by the central government and local government dependency on real estate development for revenues and economic growth. As a result, the planned tax on private re-sale transactions will do little to lower speculation.

Hard Landing Is Likely

From one point of view, China's Central government massive stimulus and easy-credit campaign have spurred a massive malinvestment in unneeded factories, marginal infrastructure projects and speculative luxury-market housing, much of which is sitting empty as "investment properties" held in lieu of other investments by Chinese households.

History does not provide many examples of governments successfully deflating a speculative credit or housing bubble. Speculative excesses tend to run out of steam quickly and end in a bust. Now that China's central government has already gone all-out to boost the economy, the world should wonder what's left in their expansionist tool belt should China's real estate suffer the hard landing in 2010 that many analysts expect.

And if China's real estate sector runs out of steam, so too does the entire China growth story -- and the global leadership many have been counting on.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/g...estate-bubble/19302329/?icid=sphere_copyright
 
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Great news.

We wish our closest ally China all the best.

:china::pakistan::china::pakistan:
 
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west has been saying Chinese economic bubble will burst now and then.......but actually china's economy is getting stronger than ever......in fact there is no such bubble........just a hoax to momentarily comfort the west.........such huge investments by china are nothing new........even in past when the economy had gone into the trouble water......china invested heavily in nation building.........and the rising economy(averaged in double digits) and booing middle class has always absorbed the might of the bubble......China is playing very smart......India suffers from different speculations.....but both the countries have kicked the ***** of western analysts and critics.........GO ASIA GO!
 
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Wow, this is great. Go China.

:china::china::china:

Time for all countries in our region to put their petty differences aside and work together to strengthen our economy and lift people out of poverty while educating them.
 
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spectacular as always :tup: for a stronger asia;)
 
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housing is the only thing im worried about but it seems the government has noticed this and have began to address the problem, i have faith in the government in this will wait to see what they will do...
 
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when there is a growth of 10-12% year over year.. one thing for sure is some sections of economy will build up excesses too fast...one can't deny that. The question is how can the govt control it when itself is run on steroids...

Many dont know here Construction (both govt and private) is around 50% of chinese economy. And every province and local leaders have targets of what kind of growth is required for the year. To meet it, essentialy u construct anything or everything. Build a road, building etc.... This works as china didnt have infrastructure till last decade. But as contruction will slow down we will see drastic fall in GDP growth or focus has to shift elsewhere....

I found it interesting to know that govt doesnt record Depreciation or Amortization of its properties !! esp when ur gdp is 50% construction !!.

China works like a company, where Higher level management Targets a Growth rate and lower level management delivers it. Its all numbers game and want to run as fast as one cud on the threadmill.

It has worked so far no question. But surely there has to be a change or excesses will create havoc sooner than later....
 
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when there is a growth of 10-12% year over year.. one thing for sure is some sections of economy will build up excesses too fast...one can't deny that. The question is how can the govt control it when itself is run on steroids...

Many dont know here Construction (both govt and private) is around 50% of chinese economy. And every province and local leaders have targets of what kind of growth is required for the year. To meet it, essentialy u construct anything or everything. Build a road, building etc.... This works as china didnt have infrastructure till last decade. But as contruction will slow down we will see drastic fall in GDP growth or focus has to shift elsewhere....

I found it interesting to know that govt doesnt record Depreciation or Amortization of its properties !! esp when ur gdp is 50% construction !!.

China works like a company, where Higher level management Targets a Growth rate and lower level management delivers it. Its all numbers game and want to run as fast as one cud on the threadmill.

It has worked so far no question. But surely there has to be a change or excesses will create havoc sooner than later....

im gonna call BS on the 50% figure, please provide source to prove me wrong.
 
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when there is a growth of 10-12% year over year.. one thing for sure is some sections of economy will build up excesses too fast...one can't deny that. The question is how can the govt control it when itself is run on steroids...

Many dont know here Construction (both govt and private) is around 50% of chinese economy. And every province and local leaders have targets of what kind of growth is required for the year. To meet it, essentialy u construct anything or everything. Build a road, building etc.... This works as china didnt have infrastructure till last decade. But as contruction will slow down we will see drastic fall in GDP growth or focus has to shift elsewhere....

I found it interesting to know that govt doesnt record Depreciation or Amortization of its properties !! esp when ur gdp is 50% construction !!.

China works like a company, where Higher level management Targets a Growth rate and lower level management delivers it. Its all numbers game and want to run as fast as one cud on the threadmill.

It has worked so far no question. But surely there has to be a change or excesses will create havoc sooner than later....
back 30 years ago
deng xiao ping the designer of the modern china he had already given the developing plan for next 50 years
it shift the growth area every ten years
from south east ----> east ----> north east ----->middle------>west
right now we are at the beginning of the middle china or center china development progress.
in another words china still have 20 years of fast GDP growth rate base on infrastructrue.
 
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China creates 2.89 mln new jobs in Q1 - People's Daily Online April 23, 2010

A total of 2.89 million new jobs were created in China's urban areas during the first three months this year, said the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) Friday.

From January to March, the urban unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 4.2 percent from the full-year figure for 2009, with 9.19 million people registered as unemployed, Yin Chengji, spokesman of the MOHRSS, told a press conference.

The 2.89 million new jobs created was about 32 percent of the full-year job creation target of 9 million, Yin said.


Source: Xinhua
 
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