PRC Economy - New Reflections : Dec 15 2011

sudarshan · Post by **sudarshan** » 20 Jun 2012 21:55

wrdos wrote:Last time when I checked the thread, it was a Chinese Economy thread. Something changed? It is going to neither Chinese, nor economy now.

Yes, something did change. Chinese guys like you came in with your "how dare you criticize China, when you Indians are a thousand years behind?" type of arguments. Bringing in everything from WW II, the meaning of "true innovation" and how no Indian innovation would ever win the Nobel prize, whereas the Chinese copying of ideas which had been around for thousands of years was the epitome of innovation, Rajat Gupta, yada yada yada. How we Indians should learn from your Chinese proverb of "pretending to be pigs, so we could eat tigers later." It's distracting, you've got to admit.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Jun 2012 03:36

Vina, indications are that PRC small time investors are moving/buying into California tech companies and taking up residency.

Just a dot to connect.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 21 Jun 2012 04:45

ramanaji, not just tall dosths, but their baki-biraders too...

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Jun 2012 08:08

by any chance are these front cos buying up small distressed tech startups and their IP as a means to funnel technologies back to the rodina? often, these small CA startups operate at the leading edge of tech though lacking in funding and scale they might not succeed commercially.

Advait · Post by **Advait** » 21 Jun 2012 08:55

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... /rat_world

Chinese Dharavi!!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Jun 2012 09:16

I am surprised - beijing would have a very far flung metro and bus network. so why cant these workers live farther away as people do worldwide around major (costly) metros?
is it because affordable low cost housing is not being built in the outlying suburbs?

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 22 Jun 2012 02:01

Hukou system

amit · Post by **amit** » 22 Jun 2012 07:02

Advait wrote:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... /rat_world

Chinese Dharavi!!

I think the folks in the FP pictures could have found better use for the 50 cents per post that Chinese Drones get. In fact I'm sure they'd be will to work for cheaper rates, say 30 cents per post? However, I can understand the dilemma of the handlers. How reliable would they be in conveying the butter and honey landscape of the wonderland built by the CCP behind the great Chinese Firewall?

Gosh they have so many tough choices to make!

amit · Post by **amit** » 22 Jun 2012 07:22

wong wrote:^^^^

Actually, I said it was a commodity skill and anybody with $2 mil could commission one of the 3/4 main Italian auto design houses. Thanks for proving my point!

A Wong ji, the above is a nice example what we poor, unsophisticated and backward In'juns call "downhill skiing", an art form perfected by your taller than mountains, deeper than oceans friend who, unfortunately, resides to the West of our homeland.

This is what you said:

So did Tata commission Bertone, ItalDesign or Pininfarina for the work ??

And even if Tata did it in house, so what? So can any second year design student.

This is the least important part of the business. I'm honestly more impressed by the clones from an Econ perspective. Remember what I said about the first Hyundai?? Nice pics. Thx.

If you need to check, see here

Now my question is if design can be done by any second year design student and is the least important part of the business, why the hell is Beijing Automotive Group hiring Leonardo Fioravanti, the designer of the Ferrari Daytona as Chief Designer? Also why did Brilliance China Automotive Holdings hire Dimitri Vicedomini from Pininfarina to head its in-house team? And Great Wall Motor has hired former Mercedes-Benz designer Andreas Deufel as design director.

I'll tell you why these companies are hiring these chaps for salaries that are slightly higher than what they pay to "any second year design student". Just read this:

The first response for many Chinese designers is to go on the Internet and copy from BMW and Mercedes and hand in the work. The result is the proliferation of look-alike models.

But then you're used to this. No wonder you thought the pictures I posted in this post were so nice!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Jun 2012 09:17

as Apple and BMW have proved, good design is worth its weight in gold for establishing brand value. an apple or bmw product leaves no doubt where it comes from.

Hyundai did its share of copying of german and japanese design but finally has developed its own style with the 'fluidic' paradigm across the fleet.

it takes time and experience. definitely not a commodity skill or 2nd yr stuff if you want a world class product.

amit · Post by **amit** » 22 Jun 2012 17:03

Singha wrote:Hyundai did its share of copying of german and japanese design but finally has developed its own style with the 'fluidic' paradigm across the fleet.

it takes time and experience. definitely not a commodity skill or 2nd yr stuff if you want a world class product.

Slight correction Singha, Hyundai never did the type of blatant copying that these Chinese companies are doing. They bought a few designs and then tried to modify them. They teamed up with Mitsubishi for engine tech but very soon found out that they were given two generations previous technology. And so they buckled down to learn the stuff and do it on their own. And boy oh boy how they've learned!

wong · Post by **wong** » 22 Jun 2012 17:19

^^^^

Selective quoting amit. This is what I wrote:

[@amit

So did Tata commission Bertone, ItalDesign or Pininfarina for the work ??

And even if Tata did it in house, so what? So can any second year design student.

This is the least important part of the business. I'm honestly more impressed by the clones from an Econ perspective. Remember what I said about the first Hyundai?? Nice pics. Thx.

And I never called the Nano "crappy". Those are your words, not mine. I said Tata made a $2,000 car for $2,000, big difference in meaning.]

So anybody can commission the Italians. Since Ferrari exclusively uses Pininfarina, this guy the Chinese hired must be ex-Pininfarina. So they got him even cheaper than commissioning Pininfarina directly with its added fees. Dime a dozen. Thanks for proving my point.

Work suddenly got very busy for me, so I won't be able to respond right away.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 23 Jun 2012 16:56

Chinese Data Mask Depth of Slowdown, Executives Say

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Coal stockpiled at Qinhuangdao port, one of the largest coal storage areas in China, reached 9.5 million tons this month.
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: June 22, 2012

HONG KONG — As the Chinese economy continues to sputter, prominent corporate executives in China and Western economists say there is evidence that local and provincial officials are falsifying economic statistics to disguise the true depth of the troubles.
Related

Record-setting mountains of excess coal have accumulated at the country’s biggest storage areas because power plants are burning less coal in the face of tumbling electricity demand. But local and provincial government officials have forced plant managers not to report to Beijing the full extent of the slowdown, power sector executives said.

Electricity production and consumption have been considered a telltale sign of a wide variety of economic activity. They are widely viewed by foreign investors and even some Chinese officials as the gold standard for measuring what is really happening in the country’s economy, because the gathering and reporting of data in China is not considered as reliable as it is in many countries.

Indeed, officials in some cities and provinces are also overstating economic output, corporate revenue, corporate profits and tax receipts, the corporate executives and economists said. The officials do so by urging businesses to keep separate sets of books, showing improving business results and tax payments that do not exist.

The executives and economists roughly estimated that the effect of the inaccurate statistics was to falsely inflate a variety of economic indicators by 1 or 2 percentage points. That may be enough to make very bad economic news look merely bad. The executives and economists requested anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with the Chinese authorities, on whom they depend for data and business deals.

The National Bureau of Statistics, the government agency in Beijing that compiles most of the country’s economic statistics, denied that economic data had been overstated.“This is not rooted in evidence,” an agency spokeswoman said.

Some still express confidence in the official statistics. Mark Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, cited the reported electricity figures when he expressed skepticism that the Chinese economy had real difficulties. “I don’t think the economic activity is that bad — just look at the electricity production,” he said.

But an economist with ties to the agency said that officials had begun making inquiries after detecting signs that electricity numbers may have been overstated.

Questions about the quality and accuracy of Chinese economic data are longstanding, but the concerns now being raised are unusual. This year is the first time since 1989 that a sharp economic slowdown has coincided with the once-a-decade changeover in the country’s top leadership.

Officials at all levels of government are under pressure to report good economic results to Beijing as they wait for promotions, demotions and transfers to cascade down from Beijing. So narrower and seemingly more obscure measures of economic activity are being falsified, according to the executives and economists.

“The government officials don’t want to see the negative,” so they tell power managers to report usage declines as zero change, said a chief executive in the power sector.

Another top corporate executive in China with access to electricity grid data from two provinces in east-central China that are centers of heavy industry, Shandong and Jiangsu, said that electricity consumption in both provinces had dropped more than 10 percent in May from a year earlier. Electricity consumption has also fallen in parts of western China. Yet, the economist with ties to the statistical agency said that cities and provinces across the country had reported flat or only slightly rising electricity consumption.

Rohan Kendall, senior analyst for Asian coal at Wood Mackenzie, the global energy consulting firm, said coal stockpiled at Qinhuangdao port reached 9.5 million tons this month, as coal arrives on trains faster than needed by power plants in southern China. That surpasses the previous record of 9.3 million tons, set in November 2008, near the bottom of the global financial downturn.

The next three largest coal storage areas in China — in Tianjin, Caofeidian and Lianyungang — are also at record levels, an executive in China said.

Many Chinese economic indicators already show a slowdown this spring, with fixed-asset investment growing at its weakest pace in May since 2001. The annual growth rate for industrial production has edged below 10 percent, while electricity generation was up only 3.2 percent in May from a year earlier and up only 1.5 percent in April.

The question is whether the actual slowdown is even worse. Skewed government data would help explain why prices for commodities like oil, coal and copper fell heavily this spring even though official Chinese statistics show a more modest deceleration in economic activity.

Manipulation of official statistics would also provide a clue why some wholesalers of consumer goods and construction materials say sales are now as dismal as in early 2009.

Keeping accurate statistics for internal use by policy makers while releasing less grim figures to the public and financial markets may also help explain why China’s central bank suddenly and unexpectedly cut interest rates earlier this month.

Studies by Goldman Sachs and other institutions over the years have strongly suggested that Chinese statisticians smooth out the quarterly growth figures, underreporting growth during boom years and overstating growth during economic downturns.

And Chinese officials have raised questions in the past about the reliability of Chinese economic statistics. An American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks shows that Li Keqiang, widely expected to become premier of China this autumn, said in 2007 that he regarded China’s broad measures of economic growth as “ ‘man-made’ and therefore unreliable.”

Mr. Li told an American diplomat that he looked instead to three indicators that he described as less likely to be fudged: electricity consumption, volume of rail cargo and the disbursement of bank loans.

Jonathan Sinton, a China energy specialist at the International Energy Agency, said he had not heard of false data in China’s electricity sector, and he doubted it would be feasible at the five biggest electricity generation companies that together produce half of China’s electricity.

“If there is a problem, it is going to be located in the smaller producers,” he said, cautioning that even these producers would eventually have to submit accurate information to reconcile fuel, electricity and financial accounts.

Stephen Green, a China economist at Standard Chartered Bank, said that the Chinese economy was still likely to recover this autumn as extra bank lending started to stimulate spending.

But a survey of Chinese manufacturing purchasing managers, released on Thursday by HSBC and Markit and conducted independently of the government, gave the second-gloomiest reading for their businesses since March 2009. Only November of last year was worse, when many small and medium-size businesses faced a brief but severe credit squeeze.

vina · Post by **vina** » 25 Jun 2012 12:24

Another example of a cowed, broken and terrorized population in a totalitarian society led by a bunch of dynastic midget sized buffoons.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/ ... REA-2.html

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 25 Jun 2012 12:32

er, why are the kids weeping? Jr Kim is very much alive so no need for mourning.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 26 Jun 2012 06:02

Singha wrote:er, why are the kids weeping? Jr Kim is very much alive so no need for mourning.

You answered your own question

member_23626 · Post by **member_23626** » 27 Jun 2012 01:07

[youtube]UqfakzT33xY&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

What China's power struggle can do to it's economy

[youtube]RXH7u3qvJH4&list[/youtube]

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 27 Jun 2012 11:00

China's external debt highest since 1985

China's outstanding external debt in 2011 totaled more than $751 billion by the end of March, the highest since 1985, according to data released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange on Tuesday.

The proportion of short-term debt also rose to a record high.

The total debt went up by 8.1 percent from the $695 billion three months earlier.

Outstanding medium and long-term debt stood at $193.6 billion, accounting for 26 percent of the total debt, while the short-term debt of $557.7 billion took up 74 percent, up by 2 percentage points compared with the end of 2011.

"Among the short-term debt, trade credit between enterprises and trade finance from banks together accounted for 75.11 percent, indicating that the surge in short-term debt is closely related to the rapid development of China's foreign trade in recent years," SAFE said in a statement.

In the first three months, China borrowed $9.3 billion in medium- and long-term external debt, down by 34.3 percent year-on-year.

"Dollar-denominated debt took up 77 percent of China's registered external debt, followed by euro debt, which made up 8.23 percent, less than 1 percentage point higher than three months earlier. Yen debt accounted for 7 percent," SAFE said.

China's external debt rose by $146 billion last year, or nearly 27 percent, adding to concerns over whether rising external debt might undermine China's fiscal position and cause economic damage.

Experts warned that regulators must watch fast-growing short-term liabilities.

The proportion of short-term external debt to the total also climbed to a record high of 72 percent as of Dec 31, in contrast to 68 percent in 2010 and 60 percent in 2009.

"Regulators should be alert to China's rapidly rising short-term external debt, as the proportion of 72 percent is well above the international alert level of 25 percent," said Li Chao, deputy head of SAFE, in December.

However, "the ratio of short-term debt to foreign exchange reserves stood at 15.75 percent, far below the globally recognized warning line of 100 percent," SAFE said earlier in March.

As of 2011, China's other external debt indicators all fell into the “safety” range, according to international standards, it said.

amit · Post by **amit** » 27 Jun 2012 11:01

hnair wrote:
Singha wrote:er, why are the kids weeping? Jr Kim is very much alive so no need for mourning.
You answered your own question

Actually both of you are thinking the wrong things. But that's natural for backward In'juns like us who treat our leaders with a remarkable degree of irreverence.

The kids are weeping because they are overwhelmed with joy because Jr Kim graced (or should that be blessed?) them with his presence. I'm sure a fair amount of glycerine was used. Or maybe not. It could be a hard spanking of these poor kids were done to get them all weepy. Disgusting.

The contrast between China's two pets is interesting. One poodle produces the stomach churning picture of Jr Kim who looks like a paedophile in the picture and the other poodle produces this:

You are known by the pets you keep.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 27 Jun 2012 11:03

China to 'maintain 8% growth for over 20 years'

BEIJING, June 19 (Xinhua) -- China still enjoys huge development potential and will maintain the eight-percent growth rate for at least another 20 years, Justin Yifu Lin, former chief economist of the World Bank, said Monday.

Lin made the remarks at a seminar at Peking University, his first public appearance in the country after he finished a four-year tenure as World Bank chief economist and senior vice president.

Lin said that developing countries should promote the growth of industries where they have comparative advantages, while governments will play a key role in selecting and developing those industries.

"At each given stage of development, the market is the fundamental mechanism for effective resource allocation, but the state needs to play a proactive, facilitating role in the move from a lower stage to a higher stage," Lin said.

The 60-year-old Chinese economist will return to teaching at Peking University and is expected to give a class in the new semester starting in September, according to the university.

Lin took up his World Bank position on June 2, 2008, after serving for 15 years as professor and founding director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 27 Jun 2012 11:51

China expands its currency-swap geography

member_23626 · Post by **member_23626** » 27 Jun 2012 17:25

Austin wrote:China to 'maintain 8% growth for over 20 years'

BEIJING, June 19 (Xinhua) -- China still enjoys huge development potential and will maintain the eight-percent growth rate for at least another 20 years, Justin Yifu Lin, former chief economist of the World Bank, said Monday.

Lin made the remarks at a seminar at Peking University, his first public appearance in the country after he finished a four-year tenure as World Bank chief economist and senior vice president.

Lin said that developing countries should promote the growth of industries where they have comparative advantages, while governments will play a key role in selecting and developing those industries.

"At each given stage of development, the market is the fundamental mechanism for effective resource allocation, but the state needs to play a proactive, facilitating role in the move from a lower stage to a higher stage," Lin said.

The 60-year-old Chinese economist will return to teaching at Peking University and is expected to give a class in the new semester starting in September, according to the university.

Lin took up his World Bank position on June 2, 2008, after serving for 15 years as professor and founding director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University.

For a country that pulls out its rate of growth from its Musharraf this shouldn't be a difficult thing to do... Let's hope the CCP remains in power till then

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 28 Jun 2012 08:09

Decision time for China

It is impossible to travel around China without concluding that the place is in the grip of a building frenzy. In less than a decade, China has pumped around $4 trillion into property; tens of millions of houses and apartments as well as Ozymandian public buildings and factory estates – and what hits the eye is how much of it all stands empty. Across the country, uninhabited concrete blocks scab the land, not only in the megacities of the eastern seaboard but also in the sleepier southwest; from filthy mining towns in Henan, all the way to entire ghost towns in Inner Mongolia. With an estimated 65 million homes standing vacant, residential construction last year was still running at a rate of five times demand.

Dwarfing even the $2 trillion borrowed for the Railway Ministry’s high-speed networks since 2008, and the thousands of kilometres of 4–6 lane toll roads with barely a vehicle on them, China’s building binge is the most striking example of what Prime Minister Wen Jiabao famously, but impotently, denounced in 2007 as the country’s “unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated and unsustainable” model of economic development. Now, with house prices and sales sagging in response to government restrictions aimed at deflating history’s biggest ever property bubble, and with local governments as deep in bad debt as the developers, I asked the businessman what was to prevent the bubble actually bursting, in a spectacular financial explosion?

His answer was that it wouldn’t happen. A lot of these empty apartments, he said, had been bought by Chinese families as investments, and they would patiently hang on to these speculative purchases because interest on savings was derisory. Secondly, although some developers would go to the wall, the bubble would simply not be allowed to burst for fear of public anger as well as economic chaos. China had massive reserves if need arose, he said, and would not hesitate to bundle nonperforming loans off into a state “bad bank”. Its plans to build 36 million “affordable” homes by 2015 would also help to offset faltering private sector demand. When in a hole, in other words, the Party keeps digging.

Then the businessman added: “Look, I don’t lose too much sleep over China’s economic troubles; but I do worry, tremendously, about a political explosion tearing the place apart”. The dramatic political destruction in March of Bo Xilai, one of China’s most thrustingly ambitious and charismatic regional Communist Party bosses, has set off that explosion. The shockwaves are convulsing China at a crucial political juncture.

The more China modernizes, the less tenable that balancing act becomes between the Maoist past and the demands of governing an increasingly sophisticated, irreverent and politically literate society.

Chen Guangcheng, a blind self-taught lawyer, is no dissident: he landed in trouble for trying to get the government to enforce its own laws, notably by organizing a class legal action on behalf of thousands of women unlawfully subjected to forced sterilizations or abortions under China’s one-child policy in his native Shandong province. For this he was jailed on trumped-up charges and then, after serving out his four-year sentence, forcibly and illegally imprisoned in his own house by thuggish Shandong security police. His dramatic escape to the US embassy awkwardly coincided with the arrival in China of Hillary Clinton

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 28 Jun 2012 11:05

Bit dated but a cautionary tale on how Panda wonderland truly functions. Screw the workers, shoddy construction and cost escalations that don't show up. Some management style. World leading economy for 30 years, my A$$...

http://english.caixin.com/2011-08-03/100287169_all.html

COVEC bid low because it was confident the task could be accomplished with inexpensive Chinese workers brought to Poland as temporary migrant laborers. The company has long used migrant labor in China and Africa, where it's handled more than 1,000 projects over the years

Yet a low bid and migrant labor were only two pillars of the COVEC strategy. The company also apparently planned to gradually demand more money from the Polish authority, citing higher-than-expected costs arising over the course of the project.

Jacking up prices after a contract is signed "is a standard ‘China method,'" said a source in the investment industry. "First, they make a low bid, and then slowly raise prices through modifications." A source close to COVEC told Caixin that Chinese companies frequently employ this contract strategy in China and Africa. "But it eventually caught them off guard that this doesn't work in Europe." Certain other "Chinese approaches" of doing business made COVEC's A2 suppliers uncomfortable. Some suppliers told Caixin they received mysterious phone calls from people who claimed to be COVEC employees, offering to discuss supply purchases privately and making veiled references to kickbacks.

Neither did COVEC spend much money on pre-bid feasibility studies and legal reviews of contract documents. Company officials saved additional time by shrugging off the project's fine print, even failing to have key items translated into Chinese.

Caixin has viewed a complete set of contracts signed by the Polish highway authority GDDKiA and COVEC consortiums. The episode C Contract for one of the two road segments in the project was only four pages long but included 37 pages of appendixes. Inside the contracts, GDDKiA had removed certain clauses common in international engineering FIDIC contracts and inserted provisions more favorable to the Polish bottom line. Cut, for example, was a clause saying the customer should provide project start-up funds. Later, when COVEC's supply costs rose, the highway authority refused to cover the additional spending, citing a contract provision that locked the project price. Thus, the Chinese side had to eat rising costs for raw materials such as sands, which jumped to 20 zloty per ton in 2010 from just 8 zloty the year before.

And the language obstacle, Caixin learned, stemmed from the fact that the signed contract – thick with legal and engineering terms – was only in Polish, and supplemented by short English and Chinese summaries. COVEC officials "asked someone to translate only a portion of the Polish-language contract," according to a former employee at the consortium.

Earlier in the year, but before halting subcontractor payments, COVEC officials had announced that the roadway would cost more than the budgeted 1.3 billion zloty. They then repeatedly asked the Polish government to adjust expenditures upward, but the employer refused the request. Engineers discovered after construction began that in many ways the project's scope was beyond expectations. For example, due to geological conditions, bridge driving piles in total reached 60,000 meters rather than 8,000 meters as originally planned.

The project's Polish engineers forced the builder to use strong materials as planned, prompting COVEC officials to complain that the Poles were "too conservative," according to a Chinese engineer.

The COVEC official originally in charge of the A2 project, Fu Tengxuan, personally appealed for government help with cost overruns. "The Polish government really welcomes us," Fu would often say when problems arose, according to a Polish businessman close to the former A2 project Chief. "We have a good relationship with them." But the businessman said Fu mistakenly thought Polish officials would be willing to provide whatever the Chinese wanted. Meanwhile, lacking understanding of the Polish construction industry and squeezed by tight finances, Fu dragged his feet in talks with subcontractors.

"Fu's tactic at the time was to wait for local suppliers to come back to the door after being turned down," said one of Fu's colleagues. "And he thought that if people come back to him, their prices should be lower." Fu turned out to be wrong. Meanwhile, his delays combined with Europe's inflationary environment increased supply costs for COVEC. "When going global, Chinese companies easily confuse commercial issues and politics, always thinking that political relations between the two countries reveal all the details," said Tao Jingzhou, an Asia managing partner for the U.S. law firm Dechert. "This is especially true in Africa, where weak legal foundations have cultivated this sort of habit and government relations truly can sometimes help solve commercial issues.

"But democratic countries in Europe will not necessarily give you face," Tao said.

COVEC initially hired a Polish law firm as a consultant, but Fu decided the cost was too high. So he dumped the firm for an inexpensive 20-something lawyer who apparently has little experience in dealing with international infrastructure projects. Other cost-saving measures included hiring low-budget translators and moving employees from one task to another. "Today's bridge expert might be transformed into a roadbed expert tomorrow," a former COVEC employee told Caixin. These practices weakened on-site management, said two of the project's Chinese engineers, who blamed management for most of the cost overruns. Equipment leasing, for example, cost more than expected due to careless scheduling.

Labor costs also exceeded expectations, and soon COVEC officials realized their low-cost advantage had vanished. One reason was that much of the equipment had to be leased, and leasing companies required trained operators, ruling out migrants. The contractor was equally shocked to learn that Polish labor laws require that companies pay local wages even to imported, Chinese workers.

"Fu tried to copy Chinese management style in Poland," said a Polish engineering expert. "Some ideas were OK, but they were used in the wrong places."

ashi · Post by **ashi** » 28 Jun 2012 11:20

China's middle-class boom

As China's economy has exploded over the last 30 years, so too have the incomes and living standards of average Chinese people.

The average disposable income of urban Chinese households rose to around $3,000 per capita in 2010, according to an analysis of official government statistics by China Market Research Group. That means a typical family of three earns around $9,000 a year.

While there's no official "middle-class" in China, (Chinese people don't use the concept), a household considered to be middle-class in China would earn somewhere between $10,000 and $60,000 a year, according to Helen Wang, author of The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the World's Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You.

The average city resident can afford to rent a 700-square-foot apartment, spend 35% of their income on food, and still put 20% aside in savings, as is customary in China, estimates James Roy, senior analyst at China Market Research.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 29 Jun 2012 10:04

China, Singapore to be exempted from Iran sanctions

ashi · Post by **ashi** » 29 Jun 2012 20:54

India and China
Friend, enemy, rival, investor

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 30 Jun 2012 12:24

Happy, healthy, well-fed, prosperous PRC citizens just blowing off a little steam:

Riots in Guangdong Escalate, Overwhelm Shaxi

On Tuesday, thousands of migrant workers swarmed into Shaxi from Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen and other neighboring cities, overwhelming the local police force. Rioters are wrecking every motor vehicle they see, stopping moving cars in order to batter them. Police cars, privately owned cars and bus stops have all been destroyed. A number of shops have been broken into as well. The Zhongshan Fuhua Station was set on fire and burned for close to 24 hours. The Shaxi town hall has also been ruined.

Namaskar,

Kishen Lal

KLP Dubey · Post by **KLP Dubey** » 30 Jun 2012 12:33

Sorry, been too busy to holla lately. Work-work-work!

More on the proliferation of chinese-made fake goods. Jus keepin' it real....

The Status of Fakery in China

If a customer falls for a fake, they obviously lose out. That is a clear example of malconsumption. But many buyers are not duped by their purchase; they want their purchase to fool everyone else. No doubt they often succeed, passing off a counterfeit good as the real thing. But in China, fakes are so widespread, the opposite danger also looms: genuine articles may be mistaken for fakes. Yue Li of Nottingham University (Word doc) cites one Chinese shopper who wrote the following on an online discussion board:

"Even if I bought a real one, it’s really embarrassed [sic] if other people think it’s fake, should I explain to everyone that it’s real?"

There sure are some serious psychological playaz out there in Pandaland.

Good day,

KL

ashish raval · Post by **ashish raval** » 30 Jun 2012 13:28

^^ it is not a rocket science to compile a list of items that India imports from china and provide massive subsidies to those Indian companies competing with dragon in these sector and lift them to level playing field. Manufacturing needs to innovate in India rapidly and grow in big way to even stand again china in future.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 30 Jun 2012 16:31

Eurozone crisis' ripple effect felt in China

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 30 Jun 2012 16:34

China to create special currency test zone

Beijing (Financial Times) -- China plans to create a special zone to experiment with currency convertibility in Shenzhen, the city where it introduced key economic reforms three decades ago.

The measure will enable Hong Kong banks to lend renminbi directly to companies in Qianhai Bay -- a new economic zone on a peninsula across the water from Hong Kong -- according to Chinese state media.

Bejing will unveil the details on Friday as Hu Jintao, Chinese president, visits Hong Kong for the 15th anniversary of the handover of the city from Britain.

Analysts say the experiment could prove as critical to eventually dismantling capital controls as Deng Xiaoping's reforms were to opening China to the world.

The Qianhai experiment follows a series of steps taken by the Chinese government to move towards making the renminbi a convertible currency that analysts believe could one day vie with the US dollar for pre-eminence in global markets.

Over the past two years, Chinese companies have been allowed to settle most of their international trade in renminbi. This has provided a conduit for the currency to flow abroad for the first time in large volumes.

Foreign institutions have also been given a limited but growing array of investment options for their renminbi holdings, such as Hong Kong's dim sum bond market and a programme for buying Chinese equities.

But China has installed speed bumps to ensure the renminbi cannot travel freely across the border for pure financial transactions. Beijing is aware that hasty capital account openings can spark situations such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Allowing Hong Kong banks to lend to Chinese companies on the mainland creates a new, potentially wide channel for renminbi held overseas to flow back to China.

Banks in Hong Kong are currently allowed to lend to Chinese clients in Hong Kong, but not in China. If the Chinese clients want to bring that money into China, they need to obtain approval from the foreign exchange regulator. The new rules are expected to eliminate many of those controls to make it possible for Hong Kong banks to directly lend to Chinese clients in Shenzhen.

In selecting Shenzhen for the latest trial, China's planners are making a nod to the past. In 1980, Shenzhen was designated the country's first special economic zone, bringing foreign investment and free trade to China, and launching the country on its way to becoming the world's second-largest economy.

Liu Ligang, an economist at ANZ, said the risks of the latest measure were greater than those attached to the 1980s opening.

"Money is fungible. Like water, it flows to low levels. So if money can flow from Hong Kong to Qianhai, the money will flow from Qianhai to other parts of China that can offer higher returns."

He said China had to ease its control of interest rates and deepen the domestic bond market before opening the capital account to lessen the risk of speculative capital rushing in and local companies accumulating dangerously big foreign debts.

Separately on Friday, the stock exchanges of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen said they would create a joint venture index company to give investors access to companies listed in all three cities for the first time and boost their capital markets.

Charles Li, chief executive of the Hong Kong Exchange, said it would create its first cross-border indices by the end of the year and launch derivative products and exchange traded funds based on the indices and stocks next year.

lakshmikanth · Post by **lakshmikanth** » 03 Jul 2012 04:38

http://m.timesofindia.com/PDATOI/articl ... 618899.cms

NAGPUR: A 12-year-old boy lost his right eye while playing with his father's China-made mobile, which exploded while it was being charged. The incident took place on Thursday at Seoni village in Yavatmal district. The boy, Mayur, suffered chemical burns on his eyes, hands and lips. The explosion has completely ruptured his right retina, making it improbable that he would regain vision in that eye.

Mayur's father Subhash Raut rushed him to a nearby hospital and then to a government hospital in Yavatmal, from where he was shifted to Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Nagpur late on Thursday night.

I hope the Lord Almighty evens this out by making the above happen to one (or many) of the nook bums in either Bakistan or Pandaland.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 03 Jul 2012 08:10

5 Signs of the Chinese Economic Apocalypse: From hog ratios to growing coal stockpiles, the Chinese economy is blinking red.

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 03 Jul 2012 22:39

It has been blinking red for so long. We were told that a crash will happen in 2008, then 2012 and so on. Still waiting.

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 03 Jul 2012 23:13

jamwal-saar, we will never know even if it happens. West is not going to rock history's best managed and most productive slave labor program.

So they will say it was a controlled demolition for an even better ekaanaameee and follow it up with fudged up next quarters. And we will all say "waaaaw!". Drones will be ordered to say "how strong, compared to us weak-ass

"

member_23626 · Post by **member_23626** » 04 Jul 2012 01:53

jamwal wrote:It has been blinking red for so long. We were told that a crash will happen in 2008, then 2012 and so on. Still waiting.

People who would literally moan if their internet is taken away should be thankful that our country doesn't run a slave labour camp for west. Blessed are people who live in areas like Beijing and Shanghai, even more blessed are those who live in the slums of these cities... so much for the gleat copy cat party (CCP). The funny part is that even at it's utmost potential by literally using millions of rural villagers in factories and make them work overtime, China is just a decade or so ahead of the lousy, incompetent India. As far as clashes are concerned, what to say of a gleat countly that breaks all the lures of economy to disprove the world? I wonder how is the HSR going?? I am not saying India is doing any good, but China literally gets everything before it even asks for it, it got missile tech in the 60s-80s, got crucial tech. from west in the 90s and has got a lot in the last decade. CCP has whored out chinese for money, that even chinese people are not going to get anyways. I wish what chola saar used to say comes true, China indeed should become a democracy, it will be 100 times more incompetent than it is today.

jamwal · Post by **jamwal** » 04 Jul 2012 13:09

Let me admit something first. I'm not knowledgeable about economics. I don't know how GDP, GNP, FDI and all those abbreviated things work. I really don't care about democracy vs communism thing.
My point is that all China bashers have been predicting a big fall which never seems to come. I could point out numerous equal=equal points between shortcomings of both nations, but I guess our Chinese friends can do it much better. Please spare the sarcasm if you reply.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 04 Jul 2012 13:30

Well its a huge country. And the admin has power to make quick decisions (autocracy) and enforce it on people (controlled masses) and on top of it can control what info gets outside to you. So you can never tell when but some day it will.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 04 Jul 2012 15:08

jamwal wrote:Let me admit something first. I'm not knowledgeable about economics. I don't know how GDP, GNP, FDI and all those abbreviated things work. I really don't care about democracy vs communism thing.
My point is that all China bashers have been predicting a big fall which never seems to come. I could point out numerous equal=equal points between shortcomings of both nations, but I guess our Chinese friends can do it much better. Please spare the sarcasm if you reply.

Jamwal ji, I see this more as a hope than actually upcoming crash of Chinese economy. It may or may not happen any time soon but if you read these ayatullahs of doom, it is like the economy has already crashed.
I wonder if this another of those myths that Chinese economy must crash the way I want it to otherwise I will lose my face.