Cina, economia
– Il consumo delle famiglie cinesi, aumentato nell’ultimo decennio ma molto meno della crescita economica, è ora al 35% del Pil, la metà circa di quello Usa.
– A fronte del calo della quota dei consumi, per sostenere il manifatturiero la Cina ha puntato sempre più sui surplus commerciali.
– La spesa per gli investimenti è cresciuta fortemente giungendo a quasi la metà del PIL, e si è diretta in gran parte sull’immobiliare (oltre la metà della crescita complessiva degli investimenti), settore dove dal 2000 ha quasi raddoppiato la sua quota sul Pil; inoltre gran parte degli investimenti rimanenti sono finiti nell’indotto dell’edilizia.
– In modo analogo a quanto avvenuto negli Usa, il credito ha visto una forte crescita – gran parte della quale, diversamente dagli Usa in cui sono state coinvolti grandi gruppi finanziari, è avvenuta tramite banche ombra, e usurai, non soggetti a controllo o sostenute da garanzie del governo;
– Quali ripercussioni avrà la bolla che sta scoppiando sull’economia cinese complessiva e su quella internazionale?
o Alcuni commentatori assicurano sulla capacità di controllo e intervento dei dirigenti cinesi;
o Ma non c’è da scommetterci, dato che la capacità di manovra del governo cinese, non limitata da costrizioni giuridiche, lo è dalla dilagante corruzione: quanto accade nelle amministrazioni locali potrebbe essere molto diverso da quanto voluto da Pechino.
– L’export è per la Cina uno dei principali motori di crescita, prevista in calo a +8,9% per il 2013.
– A novembre l’export cinese -10 punti su agosto, a $174MD annuo, ma forte crescita ad ottobre dell’export cinese verso i mercati europei ($31MD) e americani ($28,7 MD).
– Export di tessili e componenti elettroniche +14%, a $174,46 MD annuo.
– Surplus commerciale cinese -35%, a $14,5MD, in linea con il calo del manifatturiero, il primo da 2 anni e mezzo.
– Aumento di tensioni sociali, come nel 2008-2009, scioperi nelle province esportatrici, che licenziano a causa del calo delle commesse.
Ad inizio dicembre, a Shanghai, capitale economica, sciopero contro i licenziamenti di oltre 1000 operai della società di elettronica Singapour Hi-P International, subappaltatore di Appple e Hewlett Packard.
December 18, 2011
Will China Break?
– Consider the following picture: Recent growth has relied on a huge construction boom fueled by surging real estate prices, and exhibiting all the classic signs of a bubble. There was rapid growth in credit — with much of that growth taking place not through traditional banking but rather through unregulated “shadow banking” neither subject to government supervision nor backed by government guarantees. Now the bubble is bursting — and there are real reasons to fear financial and economic crisis.
– Am I describing Japan at the end of the 1980s? Or am I describing America in 2007? I could be. But right now I’m talking about China, which is emerging as another danger spot in a world economy that really, really doesn’t need this right now.
– I’ve been reluctant to weigh in on the Chinese situation, in part because it’s so hard to know what’s really happening. All economic statistics are best seen as a peculiarly boring form of science fiction, but China’s numbers are more fictional than most. I’d turn to real China experts for guidance, but no two experts seem to be telling the same story.
– Still, even the official data are troubling — and recent news is sufficiently dramatic to ring alarm bells.
– The most striking thing about the Chinese economy over the past decade was the way household consumption, although rising, lagged behind overall growth. At this point consumer spending is only about 35 percent of G.D.P., about half the level in the United States.
– So who’s buying the goods and services China produces? Part of the answer is, well, we are: as the consumer share of the economy declined, China increasingly relied on trade surpluses to keep manufacturing afloat. But the bigger story from China’s point of view is investment spending, which has soared to almost half of G.D.P.
– The obvious question is, with consumer demand relatively weak, what motivated all that investment? And the answer, to an important extent, is that it depended on an ever-inflating real estate bubble. Real estate investment has roughly doubled as a share of G.D.P. since 2000, accounting directly for more than half of the overall rise in investment. And surely much of the rest of the increase was from firms expanding to sell to the burgeoning construction industry.
Do we actually know that real estate was a bubble? It exhibited all the signs: not just rising prices, but also the kind of speculative fever all too familiar from our own experiences just a few years back — think coastal Florida.
– And there was another parallel with U.S. experience: as credit boomed, much of it came not from banks but from an unsupervised, unprotected shadow banking system. There were huge differences in detail: shadow banking American style tended to involve prestigious Wall Street firms and complex financial instruments, while the Chinese version tends to run through underground banks and even pawnshops. Yet the consequences were similar: in China as in America a few years ago, the financial system may be much more vulnerable than data on conventional banking reveal.
– Now the bubble is visibly bursting. How much damage will it do to the Chinese economy — and the world?
– Some commentators say not to worry, that China has strong, smart leaders who will do whatever is necessary to cope with a downturn. Implied though not often stated is the thought that China can do what it takes because it doesn’t have to worry about democratic niceties.
– To me, however, these sound like famous last words. After all, I remember very well getting similar assurances about Japan in the 1980s, where the brilliant bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance supposedly had everything under control. And later, there were assurances that America would never, ever, repeat the mistakes that led to Japan’s lost decade — when we are, in reality, doing even worse than Japan did.
For what it’s worth, statements about economic policy from Chinese officials don’t strike me as being especially clear-headed. In particular, the way China has been lashing out at foreigners — among other things, imposing a punitive tariff on imports of U.S.-made autos that will do nothing to help its economy but will help poison trade relations — does not sound like a mature government that knows what it’s doing.
– And anecdotal evidence suggests that while China’s government may not be constrained by rule of law, it is constrained by pervasive corruption, which means that what actually happens at the local level may bear little resemblance to what is ordered in Beijing.
I hope that I’m being needlessly alarmist here. But it’s impossible not to be worried: China’s story just sounds too much like the crack-ups we’ve already seen elsewhere. And a world economy already suffering from the mess in Europe really, really doesn’t need a new epicenter of crisis.
Les exportations chinoises marquent le pas
Mots clés : Exportations, Croissance, CHINE, Ren Xianfang, APPLE, HEWLETT PACKARD
Mis à jour le 10/12/2011 à 13:36 | publié le 10/12/2011 à 12:57 Réactions (138)
– La hausse des ventes de produits chinois à l’étranger a chuté de 10 points le mois dernier par rapport à août, à 174 milliards de dollars sur un an. Mais signe positif, les marchés européens et américains rebondissent.
– Cruciales pour la croissance, les exportations chinoises continuent de se tasser. Au mois de novembre, les ventes à l’étrangers de produits textiles ou de composants électroniques ont certes progressé de près de 14% à 174,46 milliards de dollars sur un an, selon les derniers chiffres des douanes chinoises publiés samedi. Mais cette hausse s’avère inférieure de dix points à celle enregistrée au mois d’août (+24,5%). Sachant que l’excédent commercial du pays s’est pour sa part contracté de près de 35% le mois dernier, à 14,5 milliards de dollars. Ces chiffres se situent dans la droite ligne de ceux de la prodution manufacturière, qui a reculé pour la première fois depuis deux ans et demi. L’indice PMI des directeurs d’achat est ainsi tombé à 49 pour novembre, indiquant une contraction d’activité.
– Malgré cette conjoncture économique maussade, Ren Xianfang, économiste chez IHS Global Insight à Pékin, ne s’alarme pas. «La demande externe ne s’effondre pas, assure-t-elle. Ce n’est pas comme fin 2008, lorsque la croissance à deux chiffres de la Chine a d’un seul coup perdu deux ou trois points de pourcentage.» En clair, le tableau ne serait pas si noir, d’autant que les exportations vers les marchés phares que constituent l’Union[e] européenne et les États-Unis ont même rebondi. Au mois de novembre et malgré les craintes liées à un contrecoup de la crise des dettes, celles-ci ont atteint 31 milliards de dollars pour le Vieux Continent, contre 28,7 milliards en octobre.
Pékin en proie à des vagues de grèves
– Même tendance aux États-Unis, où les exportations ont progressé de plus de 2 milliards de dollars, à près de 31 milliards. De fait, «l’économie américaine se porte beaucoup mieux que prévu», constate Ren Xianfang, qui ne cache pas espérer que celle-ci va «tenir le coup». Même si la Réserve fédérale américaine a déploré une croissance molle fin novembre pour 2012, une baisse inattendue du chômage à 8,6%, couplée à un regain de la consommation, pousse les économistes à un certain optimisme.
L’enjeu est de taille pour Pékin, puisque les exportations constituent un des principaux moteurs de la croissance, laquelle a été revue à la baisse à 8,9% pour l’année prochaine. Et ce, alors que le climat social se dégrade: comme en 2008-2009, des grèves minent désormais les provinces exportatrices, contraintes de licencier après avoir vu leurs carnets de commandes se dégarnir. La semaine dernière, des affrontement se sont déroulés à Shanghaï, la capitale économique du pays. Plus de 1000 ouvriers en grève de la compagnie électronique Singapour Hi-P International, sous-traitant d’Apple et de Hewlett Packard, ont ainsi protesté contre des coupes d’effectifs.