Chinese Economics Thread

TK3600

Captain
Registered Member
I'm confident against extreme outcomes. Your point on "real estate at the mercy of the central government" is a valid point....if this was 2013 as opposed to 2023.

I can tell you that the central government has been relaxing housing policy since middle of 2022, relaxing 2nd house purchase restrictions, allowing local governments to reduce down payment restrictions, *and* cutting LPR/RRR at the same time via PBoC. Meanwhile Liu He is at Davos telling everyone how important it is for housing to develop in a healthy manner.

Yet.....the sales data trend has not improved in aggregate. Based on what I see for the first 3 weeks of 2023 the YoY comparisons are still deteriorating in Tier 2/3 cities (like...-20% down YoY) and only turned positive in Tier 1 in the third week.

Soooo......

Either:

1) Things are really bad and they are really trying to make sure the real estate industry doesn't completely have the bottom fall out ("we went too far with bubble deflation we need you guys to not all go bankrupt")

or

2) Things aren't bad and they are trying to get the bubble going again in complete 180 to what they've done in the past 2.5 years...("sorry guys we are complete idiots we are going back to housing speculation days")

Which one is more likely?
So you are saying the government is doing their best to get price up again, but not as high as before. The market is not very responsive so far.
 

supercat

Major
China's high-tech manufacturing grew faster than its GDP in 2022. Hopefully, it will also give a boost to GDP in 2023.
The value added of high-tech manufacturing went up by 7.4 percent year-on-year and equipment manufacturing up 5.6 percent year-on-year, or 3.8 percentage points and 2.0 percentage points faster than that of the industrial enterprises above the designated size, according to the NBS.
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Botnet

Junior Member
Registered Member
What's the proof?

Before you say satellite imaging, understand that China has half the world's ISR satellites, so if the US can see it, the national level government has seen it earlier since they not only have superior imagery with higher update frequency, they also have correlation with non imaging data that they can call up for an audit any time they want, providing for a far more accurate view.

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I mean, there's plenty of articles about how provincial governments have been caught falsifying economic data.
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But I also found this...
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"However, the NBS is aware of the tendency for provincial officials to overstate GDP, and the bureau makes corrections for this behavior. In 1994, the country introduced census surveys to bypass lower-tier statistical departments and check the quality of the data collection. Four years later, the NBS took action against data falsification by issuing a reform that allowed for statistical breaks in provincial numbers to relieve past exaggeration. In 2015, the NBS reported national GDP of $10.4 trillion, which was about 7 percent less than the sum of the provincial numbers."

I think its a good thing China is cracking down on such data falsification.
 

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
I mean, there's plenty of articles about how provincial governments have been caught falsifying economic data.
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But I also found this...
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"However, the NBS is aware of the tendency for provincial officials to overstate GDP, and the bureau makes corrections for this behavior. In 1994, the country introduced census surveys to bypass lower-tier statistical departments and check the quality of the data collection. Four years later, the NBS took action against data falsification by issuing a reform that allowed for statistical breaks in provincial numbers to relieve past exaggeration. In 2015, the NBS reported national GDP of $10.4 trillion, which was about 7 percent less than the sum of the provincial numbers."

I think its a good thing China is cracking down on such data falsification.
How is this any different than similar phenomena elsewhere, but without the national level corrections, understated inflation data, or the copium about China's GDP being 30% smaller than stated "because satellites" as if China did not have satellites?

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Botnet

Junior Member
Registered Member
How is this any different than similar phenomena elsewhere, but without the national level corrections, understated inflation data, or the copium about China's GDP being 30% smaller than stated "because satellites" as if China did not have satellites?

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I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm saying that my initial premise was wrong, because although there is economic data falsification at the local level, at the national level that seems to have been accounted for, thereby unaffecting the GDP growth.
 

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm saying that my initial premise was wrong, because although there is economic data falsification at the local level, at the national level that seems to have been accounted for, thereby unaffecting the GDP growth.
We should examine GDP truthfulness for every major economy, as it is very rare that a major economy claims unprecedented growth while simultaneously experiencing a collapse in average lifespan, birth rate and labor participation.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
I mean, there's plenty of articles about how provincial governments have been caught falsifying economic data.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

But I also found this...
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"However, the NBS is aware of the tendency for provincial officials to overstate GDP, and the bureau makes corrections for this behavior. In 1994, the country introduced census surveys to bypass lower-tier statistical departments and check the quality of the data collection. Four years later, the NBS took action against data falsification by issuing a reform that allowed for statistical breaks in provincial numbers to relieve past exaggeration. In 2015, the NBS reported national GDP of $10.4 trillion, which was about 7 percent less than the sum of the provincial numbers."

I think its a good thing China is cracking down on such data falsification.
China is a very complicated economy that's probably hard to assess the exact GDP, especially when provincial gov't are incentivized to report high numbers. It happens quite often in America too, so I don't think we need to be sinister like the mainstream media about any numbers out of China.
 

YVHunter

New Member
Registered Member
China is a very complicated economy that's probably hard to assess the exact GDP, especially when provincial gov't are incentivized to report high numbers. It happens quite often in America too, so I don't think we need to be sinister like the mainstream media about any numbers out of China.
I read somewhere that the NBS doesn't count stuff like rent payments and education costs as GDP in contrast to the US which counts everything, is this true? Is it possible that the NBS is actually understating China's GDP?
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
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Registered Member
Nice breakdown of China's export market delta from Dec 2021 to Dec 2022. Keep in mind there was a big drop overall, so the increased exports to ASEAN countries, Africa and oil rich countries like Saudi/Iran/Russia are interesting.

I think there has been some greater confidence in Chinese stock market so far in January. People at Davos were quite relieved to see a more opened Chinese economy. In this example, you are seeing foreign money flowing in. It's unclear how much of this is western funds vs oil rich countries. 90 billion RMB is not a lot, but the trend is what matters here.
 

abenomics12345

Junior Member
Registered Member
Nice breakdown of China's export market delta from Dec 2021 to Dec 2022. Keep in mind there was a big drop overall, so the increased exports to ASEAN countries, Africa and oil rich countries like Saudi/Iran/Russia are interesting.

I think there has been some greater confidence in Chinese stock market so far in January. People at Davos were quite relieved to see a more opened Chinese economy. In this example, you are seeing foreign money flowing in. It's unclear how much of this is western funds vs oil rich countries. 90 billion RMB is not a lot, but the trend is what matters here.
FYI it’s more a reference of how bad 22 was vs other years. I’ll get excited when we hit 400bln
 

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