China: Weaker economic growth – ABN AMRO

According to Han de Jong, chief economist at ABN AMRO, the Chinese economy is crucially important to the global business cycle because of its size, its growth rate and its openness.

Key Quotes

“Unfortunately, the Chinese economy is less well documented than other key economies. The amount of data is relatively limited, its accuracy is sometimes doubted and policy transparency is also limited. In short, China probably knows a lot more about ‘us’ than we know about ‘them’.”

“Chinese policymakers have, for some time, aimed measures at addressing the problem of high indebtedness in parts of their economy. And they have been successful in stabilising the debt ratios of non-financial corporates and reducing shadow banking. But, the restrictive measures aimed at deleveraging must have had slower economic growth as a side effect, although this is not too obvious in the various overall growth indicators.”