La produccion industrial de China se desacelero a 8.9%
con respecto al anio pasado.Se esperaba el 9%.
China Slower Output Gains Complicate Easing Policies
By Bloomberg News
September 09, 2012 5:36 AM EDT
China’s industrial output growth was the weakest in three years in August while inflation accelerated, complicating Wen Jiabao’s task of reversing an economic slowdown that may extend into a seventh quarter.
Production increased 8.9 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing. That compared with the 9 percent median estimate of 35 economists in a Bloomberg News survey and a 9.2 percent pace in July. A separate report showed consumer prices rose at a faster pace for the first time in five months.
The rebound in inflation may constrain the government’s scope to support economic growth that President Hu Jintao said yesterday faces “notable downward pressure.” Europe’s debt crisis has crimped exports and a property crackdown is damping domestic demand, while rising housing and food costs threaten to trigger another round of consumer-price gains.
“ A renewed inflationary trend could prove to be a further complication to policy makers’ growth-inflation trade-off,” said Glenn Maguire, chief economist at consultant Asia Sentry Advisory Pty Ltd. in Sydney. “China will have enormous difficulties in crafting a policy response to these divergent price and activity trends.”
Hu reiterated yesterday that China will work to balance “steady and robust growth, adjusting economic structure and managing inflation expectations.” He pledged to boost domestic demand and ensure “basic price stability.”
Speaking to business people at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Vladivostok, Hu also urged governments in the region to speed up infrastructure development, describing it as key to promoting recovery and achieving sustained and stable growth.
China’s Commerce Minister Chen Deming said specific measures to support and stabilize foreign trade will be announced soon, according to an interview broadcast today by China Central Television. He also said the nation’s foreign trade situation in the fourth quarter will be better than in the third.
Hu’s comments follow a slew of announcements by the Chinese government approving the construction of new roads, railways and urban infrastructure that Nomura Holdings Inc. estimates have a combined value of about 1 trillion yuan ($158 billion).
The Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP), China’s benchmark stock gauge, rose the most in eight months on Sept. 7 after the nation’s top economic planning agency published the approvals. Sany Heavy Industry Co. (600031) the nation’s biggest machinery maker, jumped the most since February 2009 and Anhui Conch Cement Co., the country’s largest cement maker, had its biggest gain since July 2010, on optimism demand for their products will rise.
The yuan had its sixth weekly gain, the longest winning streak since April 2011, after the European Central Bank unveiled a bond-buying plan to revive the region’s growth. The currency rose 0.1 percent against the U.S. dollar in the week ending Sept. 7 to 6.3430.
The increase in August industrial production was the weakest since May 2009. Power output rose 2.7 percent from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said, compared with 2.1 percent in July. Growth in production of rolled steel slumped to 1.4 percent from a year earlier from a 6.5 percent pace in July.
Separate reports showed fixed asset investment excluding rural households climbed 20.2 percent in the first eight months of the year, little changed from the first seven months. Retail sales rose 13.2 percent from a year earlier in August, in line with the median economist estimate.
In property development, newly started floor space fell 6.8 percent in the first eight months from a year earlier after a 9.8 percent drop in the first seven months, while floor space under construction was little changed at 15.6 percent, although down from 25 percent in the first quarter.
Zhang Zhiwei, Hong Kong-based chief China economist at Nomura, said some leading indicators in the data, including land purchases, housing starts and investment in new projects, point to an improvement in property and infrastructure investment in coming months.
“These suggest economic momentum will pick up soon,” said Zhang, who estimates growth will rebound to above 8 percent in the fourth quarter.
Inflation last month accelerated to 2 percent from a year earlier after a 1.8 percent rate in July, the statistics bureau said. The slide in producer prices deepened to 3.5 percent.
Food inflation accelerated for the first time in five months, rising 3.4 percent from a year earlier. Consumer prices increased 0.6 percent from the previous month, the biggest rise since January, while food prices increased 1.5 percent from July.
UBS AG and ING Groep NV on Sept. 7 cut their forecasts for economic expansion this year to 7.5 percent amid a weakening global outlook and less forceful policy support than they previously expected. That would be the slowest pace in 22 years.
“The lack of aggressive stimulus has prompted our migration from the soft-landing camp to the hard-landing camp,” Tim Condon, Singapore-based head of Asia research at ING, said before today’s data. “Authorities are sufficiently alarmed by the unintended consequences of their 2008 stimulus that they want to avoid a repeat, which a significant monetary easing would risk.”
ING lowered its estimate for China’s third-quarter growth to 7.1 percent from 8.2 percent, while Bank of America Corp. estimates a 7.4 percent pace. The economy expanded 7.6 percent in the three months through June from a year earlier, the least in three years and the sixth straight quarterly slowdown.
The central bank has held off from monetary policy loosening since July 5 when it cut interest rates for the second time in less than a month. It also lowered lenders’ reserve requirement ratios three times between November and May.
“The authorities seem to be running a risky policy experiment to see how well the economy can hold up without any big dose of stimuli,” Yao Wei, a Hong Kong-based economist with Societe Generale SA said in a Sept. 6 note. “Although prudent, this approach is prone to large downside risks in the short term.”
While the domestic slowdown is deepening, Europe’s austerity measures and stagnant wages and a lack of jobs in the U.S. are weighing on exports.
The customs bureau will issue trade data for August tomorrow. Exports probably rose 2.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey, after a 1 percent increase in July. Overseas shipments climbed 24.5 percent in August last year.
Shen Danyang, a Commerce Ministry spokesman, said last month that the country faces increasing pressure to meet its goal of 10 percent growth in trade this year. Overseas sales rose 7.8 percent in the first seven months of the year and imports gained 6.4 percent.
The government is this month expected to announce a package of measures to support exports, the China Daily reported yesterday, citing two unnamed sources from the Ministry of Commerce. Trade figures for August “are not positive and not encouraging,” the paper cited the sources as saying.
--Zheng Lifei. With assistance from Ailing Tan in Singapore, Regina Tan in Beijing and Michael Forsythe in Vladivostok. Editors: Nerys Avery, John Liu
To contact the reporter on this story: Zheng Lifei in Beijing at
lzheng32@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst at
ppanckhurst@bloomberg.net