Gavekal Dragonomics
October 18, 2018
China’s central bank is trying a new strategy to help private companies get access to credit. Rather than just push small-business lending, it is encouraging lending to all private firms, including larger ones. In this piece, Thomas explains why the old strategy wasn’t working, and why the new one is more likely to help the private sector.
Gavekal Research
October 16, 2018
So far this year the CSI 300 A-share index is down -22.3%. However, argues Thomas, this is no repeat of 2015’s bear market. While there’s little chance of a significant rebound anytime soon, without a stimulus or an end to the trade war, when investors eventually do return to Chinese markets they will be greeted by an improved regulatory environment.
Gavekal Dragonomics
October 10, 2018
After a decade of splurging on infrastructure projects, China’s local governments are now having to cut back. But Beijing has continued to pour money into centrally supported initiatives, particularly Xi Jinping’s pet project for developing the region surrounding Beijing. In this piece, Tom reports on how this northern megaproject is progressing.
Gavekal Research
October 2, 2018
The good news is that after months of posturing, President Donald Trump’s administration has cut a deal for a new Nafta, following July's hasty agreement with the EU to defer car tariffs. Trade war on all fronts may now be off the agenda, but conflict with China over trade, investment, technology and geopolitical dominance will only escalate.
Gavekal Research
September 18, 2018
Donald Trump’s administration has upped the ante in its trade war with China, imposing tariffs on an additional US$200bn of Chinese imports. The tariffs will take effect on September 24 at a rate of 10%, rising to 25% at the beginning of 2019 unless some kind of a deal can be worked out with Beijing. The chances of a deal are vanishingly small.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 15, 2018
The number eight is traditionally a lucky number for Chinese. Exporters could be forgiven for not believing in that tradition: 2018 looks like it will join 1998 and 2008 as a year in which exports suffer a major shock. In this piece, Andrew evaluates the state of the economy as the US prepares more tariffs, and how China can manage the impact.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 13, 2018
China’s government is worried about slowing growth, but also does not want to give up on financial de-risking. To balance these priorities, it has devised a new tool: “special-purpose” bonds issued by local governments. In this piece, Chen Long explains how this new way of funding infrastructure will work, and how much stimulus it can deliver.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 14, 2018
China's data releases for July showed that the easing measures of the last few months have yet to have an impact on the real economy, with industrial value-added, fixed-asset investment and retail sales all slowing. Further monetary easing measures will follow.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 9, 2018
China this year ordered central SOEs to bring down their asset-liability ratio down by 2pp by 2020. That might sound like a modest change, but it means doing much more deleveraging in the next two years than in the last two. With policymakers now starting to ease policy, this aggressive hard target for deleveraging will likely become a soft one.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 5, 2018
Regulators and investors are getting more concerned about China’s household debt after its sharp rise in recent years. In this piece, Chen Long breaks down the rise in leverage and explores the policy options. It would be plausible and prudent for China to now slow the buildup of household debt—but this may not mesh with the easing of policy.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 30, 2018
There is a widespread belief that implicit government guarantees allow Chinese state-owned enterprises to command preferential access to credit at below-market interest rates. In this paper, Thomas digs deeply into the corporate data to determine the true magnitude of this interest rate subsidy, and its importance to SOE profitability.
Gavekal Research
August 1, 2018
The momentum for a weaker renminbi is considerable, with the US ratcheting up its trade war with China and the Chinese government moving to easier fiscal and monetary policies. But Chen Long argues that the renminbi’s downside from current levels may prove limited even though the central bank is unlikely to intervene as much as it did in 2015-16.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 6, 2018
While China’s government is talking tough about containing its frothy property market, the market does not appear to be listening. Housing sales are still growing, price rises are accelerating and construction activity is robust. In this piece, Rosealea explains why property has outperformed, and updates her outlook for the rest of 2018.
Gavekal Dragonomics
July 26, 2018
The long decline in China’s housing inventories—the key factor driving the recovery in construction—now seems to have ended. After falling in 2015, 2016 and 2017, housing inventories are now on pace to end 2018 slightly higher. In this piece, Rosealea explains why this change will not spell the end of the construction cycle just yet.
Gavekal Dragonomics
July 13, 2018
China’s real-estate developers are getting hammered in stock and credit markets. But the largest of these firms are well-placed to ride out current strains, and are the main beneficiaries of accelerating consolidation and government policy. As the Chinese property market matures, the winners are likely to be a small group of the largest companies.
Gavekal Dragonomics
October 1, 2018
Technology is at the heart of China’s trade conflict with the US, and no technology is more critical than semiconductors. So as the US moves to block its access to technology, China is doubling down on its drive to build up a domestic semiconductor industry. In this piece, Dan lays out the reasons why China’s drive will eventually succeed.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 23, 2018
In the past years, billions of dollars of Chinese venture capital have poured into US tech firms. This is alarming to the US Defense Department, which believes these investments could lead to a flow of critical technology back to China, eroding the American advantage in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 16, 2018
China’s government is making a determined effort to co-opt private technology companies to help modernize its military. The pressure to support this drive, known as “military-civil fusion,” creates new political risks for tech companies and their investors: they could face more Chinese government interference and a political backlash from abroad.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 3, 2018
Facing trade conflict with the US and a slowdown in credit growth, China is under pressure to use fiscal policy more aggressively to support the economy. On Friday, the National People’s Congress delivered on at least part of the solution, passing a large cut in personal income taxes. In this piece, Ernan explains the impact of this tax cut.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 28, 2018
This technical note explains why the retail sales growth numbers reported by the National Bureau of Statistics are so much higher than the growth rates one can calculate by comparing this year's sales values with last year's. This is not an effort to cover up bad economic performance by fudging statistics, but the opposite.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 28, 2018
Consumer spending has been the ballast of China's economy over the past six years. But this year its resilience has been questioned, thanks to a sharp fall-off in automobile sales and reported growth rates in retail sales that appeared to bear no relationship to the underlying data.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 25, 2018
Steel prices are high thanks to a tough government plan to reduce smog by shutting down metals production—but the rise in prices has recently started to reverse as uncertainty over these policies increases. Rosealea reports on the steel industry’s new pushback against strict output curbs, and why these controls are likely to become more flexible.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 19, 2018
The US is preparing to re-impose sanctions on Iran, threatening to punish any country that continues to buy its oil. China has struck a defiant tone, and many analysts expect Chinese oil companies to ignore the US sanctions. But in this piece, Yanmei argues that Chinese importers have little choice but to sharply reduce their purchases from Iran.
Gavekal Dragonomics
August 24, 2018
North China is gearing up for big cuts in heavy industry output this winter, in a repeat effort to clean up the skies over Beijing. This campaign will, by constraining supply and raising costs, exert steady upward pressure on metals prices. In the long run, it will encourage producers to move to other regions, redrawing China’s industrial map.
Gavekal Research
July 11, 2018
Chinese equities have finally had a few solid trading sessions after their steep decline in the latter half of June. But the CSI 300 index is still down -14% year-to-date, and betting on a rebound from here looks unwise.
Gavekal Dragonomics
January 29, 2018
2017 was a great year for China’s industrial sector, with profits up 21%, but the gains were highly concentrated in mining, metals and materials. This pattern has a mix of important consequences, as Thomas explains in this piece: it’s good news for financial risk, less good news for households, and bad news for corporate investment.
Gavekal Dragonomics
January 9, 2018
Amid the ups and downs of China's recent investment cycles, one trend has stayed constant: the slowdown in private-sector investment. In this piece, Thomas shows that a key problem is state firms routinely delaying payments to their private suppliers, forcing them to hold huge reserves of working capital that can’t be productively invested.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 10, 2018
China’s healthcare reforms have created new opportunities for global pharmaceutical firms and made healthcare a favored sector for many investors. But as Ernan explains, the government’s top priority these days is controlling healthcare costs, especially drug prices. That trend makes it trickier to profit from China’s healthcare growth story.
Gavekal Dragonomics
May 23, 2018
The story of China’s urbanization has long been the migration of people from the country to the cities. Not anymore: as Ernan explains, rural migration has slowed sharply, and is being replaced by the reclassification of rural areas into urban ones. Policymakers now prefer this “local urbanization,” even though it delivers less income growth.
Gavekal Dragonomics
March 20, 2018
China’s legislature has approved the creation of a national “supervision” system, an arm of government equal to the executive, legislative and judicial branches that is charged with overseeing the vast public sector. As Yanmei explains, the new system transforms Xi Jinping’s signature anti-corruption crusade into something even more ambitious.
Gavekal Research
June 13, 2018
After the Trump-Kim summit, North Korea's commitment to denuclearization still remains a fiction. Future negotiations will be mostly about stringing along the US administration. While Washington and Pyongyang talk, Beijing and Seoul will continue to try to normalize the existence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and cement peace.
Gavekal Dragonomics
June 7, 2018
Ominous clouds are gathering over Taiwan, as China steps up displays of military force and its campaign of international isolation. Could this escalate into a replay of the 1995-6 Taiwan Strait crisis, or something even worse? In this piece, Yanmei assesses the rising risks, but argues that military conflict is still a remote possibility.
Gavekal Dragonomics
May 9, 2018
It is still possible that the US and China will strike a deal to avert threatened tariffs. But as Arthur argues in this piece, any deal will be mostly cosmetic. The tension between the two is not mainly about trade, but about China’s challenge to US global dominance. The US will almost certainly keep trying to counter China’s efforts to gain power.
Gavekal Dragonomics
October 3, 2018
Where is China heading as it undergoes demographic change of unprecedented speed and scale? In this chartbook, Ernan offers a comprehensive guide to the unfolding transformation of the nation’s population, focusing on changes in family-planning policy, the implications of an aging society, and the shifting patterns of migration.
Gavekal Dragonomics
September 20, 2018
In this chartbook, Thomas outlines the key trends in the fundamentals of China’s corporate sector. Growth in sales and profits has stayed stronger for longer, but is driven mainly by high materials prices. A rebound in capex is starting to fade. Deleveraging continues but more slowly, and may not last much longer as profits cool and debt rises.
Gavekal Dragonomics
November 28, 2017
In our annual review of the Chinese consumer, Ernan outlines the short-term outlook and longer-term trends in household spending. This chartbook explains why consumption growth has been a bit disappointing in 2017, why the outlook for 2018 is better, what are the drivers of consumption upgrading, and how the transition to online is playing out.
Gavekal Research
July 17, 2018
China has an ambitious industrial upgrading plan, called Made in China 2025, which targets Chinese leadership in about 30 technological segments. In this video interview Dan explains how the government aims to achieve this, how this plan differs from previous Chinese policy goals, and whether it is likely to succeed.
Gavekal Research
July 12, 2018
In this call Arthur Kroeber outlined his view on why President Donald Trump’s trade war is not a bluff, and is likely to escalate ahead of the US midterm elections in November; Andrew Batson explained the macro-level effects caused by all this uncertainty; and Chen Long discussed the market impacts in China and the country’s likely response.
Gavekal Research
April 18, 2018
During yesterday’s monthly call, Arthur Kroeber addressed rising geoeconomic and geopolitical tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.