Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Chinese GDP and Trade: Bad News for Australia?

The charts below are from ANZ Research. There is good chart coverage of the latest stats on the Chinese economy. Here are a few that I think show some problems ahead for the Australian economy.

The first show the slowing of growth in the Chinese economy. Michael Pettis argues that the rebalancing of the Chinese economy will probably mean that growth will slow to between 3-4 per cent.  While some have argued that there is a social stability rate of growth above 6 per cent, if the consumption increases (due to rising wages and transfers) while investment declines it is likely that this slowing rate of overall growth will not necessarily be bad for Chinese workers.


Contrary to some perceptions that China is an export-led economy, it is actually an investment-led economy. This means that if investment declines, in the short-term at least, growth will slow, because consumption will not be able to take up the slack in the short-term. The rebalancing of the economy away from increasingly unproductive investment to consumption is unlikely to be quick or smooth. As the chart below shows, consumption actually declined in recent times.

As investment slows and consumption increases in China, Australia may eventually be able to take advantage of China's growing middle class, but it won't see levels of demand to match recent years' demand for resources.





 

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