China Growth Is Just About Right (合适)
11/27/2008 Update Notice:
China Comment plans to return to its regular schedule of 1-2 articles a week in mid-December. Currently, in my free time, I am catching up on some China-related academic reading material. If you have suggestions of particularly insightful recently published Journal articles to peruse, I would much appreciate the advice. Thank you for reading.
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I agree China will only see 8-9% growth in 2009, which is less than its previous trend of double-digit economic growth; however, this slowdown will not be disastrous- in fact, it may be beneficial. Only a few months ago analysts complained how China was growing too fast, how inflation was hurting the economy, and how high commodity prices were thrashing China’s consumers, and how the government’s artificially cheap energy market was crippling China’s energy industry.
Now, commodity prices have descended, along with $65 and lower/barrel oil. And that is highly beneficial for China. If prices for steel, coal, and other commodities remained at their Summer levels, China’s prospects for stability and growth would greatly diminish. However, if in June China could be projected to grow nearly 10% y/oy despite $100+/barrel oil, it makes sense that the country- which is rapidly developing its domestic market, can readily afford domestic investments such as those included in China’s $586 billion “stimulus” plan.
China needed this decline in commodity prices, and easing demand to allow its infrastructure to catch up to its growth. On November 14th, State Grid Corp. said “it will invest an extra 2.7 billion yuan ($400 million) to expand power grids,” (IHT), which is a welcome upgrade since over the Summer, China experienced troubling shortfalls in power distribution and production. And when the infrastructure is there to improve transportation efficiency, China’s economy will be humming again with double digit growth.
In 2006, Business Week laid out the case that “An economy growing in the 8 percent to 9 percent range would be ideal,” and China’s 2008 growth target was 8 percent, “following last year’s sizzling 11.9 percent expansion.” (China Daily, June 19, 2008). Growth at that range is more sustainable for China and can prevent the country from building out too much over-capacity. In fact, the world-wide economic downturn may ultimately benefit China. If the country’s weakest-managed companies consolidate, and if the over-capacity is not too enormous (Which it very well may be in the shipping industry.) there is a chance that Chinese companies will emerge from the downturn better managed and better equipped to compete on a global scale, like Haier and Galanz did before and emerged as national champions (also; Made In China, Donald Sull).
Larger Companies… But Many Are Larger “State”-Owned Companies. (Perhaps A Problem)
An alternative view points out that the downturn has led to larger, and perhaps stronger state owned corporations at the expense of privately held ones.
Some larger state mergers, both first announced in June but only recently completed, include:
(1) Sinotrans CSC Group, combining China’s largest logistics (state-owned) and largest river shipping company (state-owned) [so much for the anti-monopoly law.] Apparently, “The merger of the two state-owned groups is a move to consolidate fragmented state-owned groups into fewer, more efficient and focused entities which can deploy their resources for developing identified business areas.” After the merger, Sinotrans CSC will become “the country’s second largest shipping and logistics conglomerate, just trailing COSCO Group.”* (See Below)
(2) Two state aircraft makers also merged.
(3) On October 27, “China Huaneng Group, one of the country’s largest power generating firms, bought a 40 percent stake in Huating Coal Group, the top coal mining company in the northwestern province of Gansu.” Laiwu Steel Corp. and Jinan Iron and Steel Co. agreed to merge to form China’s second largest iron and steel group in February (Reuters and China Daily)
(4) On November 6th Rizhao Iron and Steel, one of China’s largest private-sector steel mills, “signed an agreement to consolidate with a state-owned rival.” (Reuters). Rizhao’s yearly output is 8 million tons of steel (CER); comparatively, the state giant Baosteel, which is being strengthened by the Central Government and is aggressively merging and acquiring assets, produced “28 million tons” in 2007 and hopes to raise its capacity to 80m tons by 2012 (FT, Nov 6, 2008). In consideration of the Laiwu and Baosteel mergers, it will be difficult for private manufacturers to grow fast enough to compete.
Jobs? Production? Trade?
The Canton trade fair was sparsely attended; and some workers’ wages have been cut in half, which will at best constrain spending and prevent China’s domestic economy from picking up the slack in growth from its export sector. At worst, this could lead to stability challenges and tax revolts as workers are laid off, then return to the provinces after find it increasingly difficult to gain and hold jobs.
Conclusion: A Strong China
Although China faces some challenges, the ameliorating effects of lower commodity prices, slowing inflation, economic reform, slash of lending rates from 6.93% to 6.66%, and some pro-export government growth policies such as “increasing tax rebates “on 3,770 export items, or 27.9 percent of all products shipped by China. [by December]” will continue to sustain China’s growing success.
Side Note on Western Manufacturing:
China’s tax rebates on export items, which were recently phased out, but which have now returned, may become a challenging issue in Europe and America, since the rebates will, along with alleged “currency manipulation,” undercut Western manufacturers’ prices. Coupled with cheaper oil and transportation costs, this will lead to a big discount and growth opportunity for Chinese exporters.
In response, Western countries may turn more protectionist, or else (barring a rise in energy or transportation costs from China), there will be another round of Western manufacturing demise.
Additional Information
* “Sinotrans posted operating revenue of RMB 57.7 billion in 2007, and aims to boost the figure to somewhere between RMB 80 billion and RMB 100 billion by 2010. Changjiang National Shipping focuses on river shipping. It has total assets of RMB 41.2 billion and a staff of 70,000, as of end 2007.” (SeaTrade Asia Online).
Bandwagoning About China’s Economy
In the wake of the global economic downturn, China’s economy is growing slower; “only” 9 to 9.9% on the year (Reuters), and perhaps expanding at 8 to 9% in 2009 (China Daily, 11/8/08). Some experts warn that China needs to grow between 6 to 8% to ensure stability and sufficient employment for newly-emerging workers. These worries led to a spate of articles spouting warnings about China’s 2009 economic prospects. Announcement of China’s “financial stimulus” package led to a brief hope-driven turnaround in investor opinion, but China alone cannot lead worldwide economic recovery (other analysts agree). Still, China’s economic composition allows it to weather this recession quite well.
The mass media seems at times to get into “bandwagons” of “fad” commentary that lose sight of the big picture behind issues. For purposes of perspective, I present a cautionary review of some now-ironic predictions and “dire warnings” that were made from November 2007 until today.
(Later, I hope to present a case for what circumstances will allow for continued Chinese economic viability.)
There always seems to be another crisis looming, and yet, China sustains its economic growth. This summer, China was buffeted by increasing energy prices, which contributed to rising prices for food and other commodities. Now, China has seen six consecutive months of declines in its inflation rate and China fears deflation may arrive around February 2009 (The Guardian). China last dealt with deflation in 2002, shortly after China joined the WTO (in late 2001); interestingly, that deflationary experience was similarly precipitated by domestic overcapacity.
Remember back in March 2008 when “Premier Wen Jiabao said tackling inflation was ‘the biggest concern of the people’”, and the BBC commented that “[t]his is a serious concern for the government, which fears higher food prices could trigger social unrest.” (BBC, March 11, 2008).
Deflation may harm China’s growth, but it may also correct a near-overheated inflationary market that was otherwise in danger of bursting. In 2002 the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce warned of deflation, but also noted its benefits (I emphasized the most pertinent part); “[a]lthough deflation can give consumers greater spending power, it ultimately gives way to weaker demand as consumer confidence begins to erode [because prices keep falling]… On the flip side, deflation can help increase consumers’ spending power, raise the standard of living of China’s poorer residents, and weed out weaker companies…Mild deflation in China has so far kept the economy from going into recession, and the economy has enjoyed steady growth for the whole of 2002.”
Both inflation and deflation can harm economies, given other surrounding factors, but when making “bets” on China’s future, this current situation should serve as a reminder to draft out a long term plan. In February and March, headline articles appeared not to see this slowdown coming. Instead, they were concerned that inflation driven by rising commodity prices would lead to rising prices for exported Chinese goods, and dire domestic consequences.
A Basically Strong China Supports the World versus A Structurally Weak China Burdens the World.
Just four months ago, Albert Keidel’s piece on China’s coming economic rise was touted as a harbinger of a Chinese Century of overpowering strength. Although people who study China know China currently lacks the economic heft to single-handedly support the world economy, TV newscasters, the BBC, and others complained about how China’s demand was either the main or a significant factor for driving up oil prices. Although China’s rising demand certainly contributed to some of the climb to $150/barrel oil, no one country’s sole future expected supply and demand caused oil’s massive price fluctuations from $60 to $150.
Importantly, China’s decreases in demand for certain commodities came after American consumers cut back on their mileage driven and energy utilized (June 2008 saw the biggest decline in US oil utilization in 17 years). In China, however, imported oil demand was up 17.3 percent in the first five months of 2008 [and was up 3 percent in June] despite prices rising 66.9 percent over the previous year (Xinhua, June 2008). China’s imported oil demand decreased 7 percent in July, but then gained 11.5 percent in August, according to Bloomberg.
Additionally, bulls who bet that oil would become scarce and that demand would remain high were confronted with Western public policy pushes toward financing and supporting recovery of additional energy sources.
When considering China’s current affect on the world, it is important to remember that although China is growing, “China accounts for no more than 11% of global GDP, against 21% for the U.S, on a purchasing power parity basis. [5% for China and 28% on non-PPP numbers] Its domestic market is only one-eighth of the size of the U.S.’s at $1.2 trillion (2007 consumption). (Forbes). China can be a guiding factor, one of many in the growth of the world economy, so its domestic policies will likely neither harm, nor hurt the global economy much more than Japanese domestic economic policies (which admittedly is no small effect). But China alone cannot shake the world… yet.
Bonus
* A paper delivered at the Peterson Institute on April 3, 2008 argues that to combat inflation “the world economy really needs what is now forecast for 2008/2009: a significant slowing of economic growth.” It’s good to remember that some people thought this recession could help the economy avoid a larger future financial disaster. Could America’s economic implosion actually have saved China from its own domestic inflationary and energy-price-driven meltdown? It is an interesting point to consider.
To avoid over-capacity, economies need to grow at measured rates. 20 years of growth at 6% is arguably better than 5 years at 10%, 2 years at 5%, then 4 years at 9%, then 3 years at 4% since steady growth rates guarantee a modicum of both stability and job security.
* To allow another view to express itself; perhaps China caused part of the fluctuation in demand for some commodities. J. Christoph Amberger at Seeking Alpha warned in April 2008 that slowing growth in textile and light industry export toward Western countries would contribute to Chinese economic weakness post-Olympics.
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