China Economy Archives - Iran News Daily

China’s Economy Continues to Recovery from COVID-19 Pandemic

reporter 1222 — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 06:38:18 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – China’s economy continues its recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic according to its latest official figures.

The world’s second-biggest economy saw growth of 4.9% between July and September, compared to the same quarter last year, BBC reported.

However, the figure is lower than the 5.2% expected by economists.

China is now leading the charge for a global recovery based on its latest GDP data.

The near-5% growth is a far cry from the slump the Chinese economy suffered at the start of 2020 when the pandemic first emerged.

For the first three months of this year China’s economy shrank by 6.8% when it saw nationwide shutdowns of factories and manufacturing plants.

It was the first time China’s economy contracted since it started recording quarterly figures back in 1992.

Gathering pace

The key economic growth figures released on Monday suggest that China’s recovery is gathering pace, although experts often question the accuracy of its economic data.

The quarterly figures are compared to the same quarter of 2019.

“I don’t think the headline number is bad,” said Iris Pang, chief China economist for ING in Hong Kong. “Job creation in China is quite stable which creates more consumption.”

China’s trade figures for September also pointed to a strong recovery, with exports growing by 9.9% and imports growing by 13.2% compared to September last year.

Over the previous two decades, China had seen an average economic growth rate of about 9% although the pace has gradually been slowing.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has hampered this year’s growth targets, China is also embroiled in a trade war with the US which has escalated in recent months.

Cash injections

The Chinese government has rolled out a raft of measures this year to revive the coronavirus-hit economy and support employment.

While the central bank stepped up policy support earlier this year after widespread travel restrictions choked economic activity, it has more recently held off on further easing.

Premier Li Keqiang warned earlier this month that China needs to make arduous efforts to achieve its full-year economic goals.

For the second quarter of this year, economic growth in China reached 3.2% as its started its rebound.

“China’s economy remains on the recovery path, driven by a rebound in exports,” said Yoshikiyo Shimamine, chief economist at the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.

“But we cannot say it has completely shaken off the drag caused by the coronavirus.”

Broadening recovery

China’s economy continues to grow at rates unimaginable in other COVID-hit countries.

Draconian lockdown measures to control the virus combined with some government stimulus appeared to have worked well.

While growth of 4.9% is slightly below some forecasts, industrial output – a good barometer of state controlled activity – came in above expectations.

The ruling Communist Party of China wanted to see ramped up supply, but retail sales were slower than predicted.

Nonetheless it appears to be a broadening recovery with the all-important services sector rebounding.

Domestic tourists and travelers have probably helped the recovery continue by spending their money at home because global restrictions mean they can’t – yet – go abroad.

Travel boom

China’s economy should also get a boost this year from “Golden Week” – an annual holiday in October that sees millions of Chinese travel.

With international travel severely restricted, millions of Chinese have been traveling, and spending, domestically instead.

There were 637m trips in China over the eight-day holiday which generated revenue of 466.6bn RMB ($69.6bn, £53.8bn), according to data from its Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Duty-free sales in the tropical island province of Hainan more than doubled from last year, soaring by nearly 150% according to the local customs data.

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South Korea no that present in China market

reporter 1222 — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 08:45:15 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Market share of South Korea in China has been on the decline for years, data showed Tuesday, amid increased competition and a decline in its product competitiveness.

South Korea companies accounted for 8.5 percent in the import market in China in 2019, down from 10.4 percent in 2015, the Federation of Korean Industries said, citing Comtrade, a UN database, Yonhap reported.

American companies saw their shares in China’s import market fall to six percent in 2019, down from 8.9 percent in 2015, the data showed.

The market shares of Japan and Germany also fell to 8.3 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively, from 8.5 percent and 5.2 percent during the cited period.

The decline came as China provided support to Chinese companies to help them strengthen competitiveness.

South Korean companies’ market share in China could fall further as an interim trade deal between Washington and Beijing would increase US access to the Chinese market.

In January, the United States and China signed the phase-one trade deal.

Under the deal, China will purchase $200 billion worth of additional US products through 2021, while the US will not implement further tariffs on its counterpart’s products and ease existing barriers as well.

In January, the Korea International Trade Association said in its report that South Korea’s outbound shipments of manufactured goods may face a tumble as the US goods may replace its products in the Chinese market.

Exports to China — South Korea’s largest trading partner — slipped 10.5 percent in January from a year earlier to $9.69 billion, due mainly to the decrease in shipments of machinery, along with the Chinese Lunar New Year’s holiday.

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US Uses Virus to Damage China Economy; Iran Official says

reporter 1222 — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 14:09:05 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A senior medical official in Iran said that the US and the western media are using the atmosphere created after the outbreak of the virus in China as a weapon against the powerful Asian country’s economy.

“The reality is that the US trade and economy confrontation against China have turned virus into a pretext to strike a rival,” Rouhollah Dorostkar, the head of Baqiatallah University’s virology department, told Iranian news agency on Wednesday.

He expressed doubt that the US and other western media would make the same level of hues and cries if the virus started from a city other than Wuhan city in China.

Dr. Dorostkar pointed out that coronavirus and flu virus behaves similarly, and said, “Although the US has developed the flu vaccine since years ago, it still takes lives and Washington is doing trade and making a profit from the disease.”

Iran’s Civil Defense Organization in a statement on Tuesday declared that no patient infected with coronavirus had been hospitalized in the country, stressing efforts to produce a vaccine for the deadly disease.

“The general condition of the country is rated white with regard to biosecurity,” the statement by the Civil Defense Organization said, stressing preparedness to use all its capacities to fight against biological threats, control the disease and treat possible infections.

“The existing field studies and evidence show that the possibility for the outbreak of this disease in Iran is low,” it added.

The Civil Defense Organization announced that it has started research on the disease and is trying to develop an antibody and vaccine for it.

The coronavirus was first seen in Wuhan, China, late December 2019. It has so far killed 490 and affected over 24,324 people.

Wuhan is in a virtual lockdown, and nearly all flights at the city’s airport have been canceled and checkpoints block the main roads leading out of town. Authorities have imposed similar lockdowns on more than 10 cities near Wuhan as part of the ongoing containment effort.

The coronavirus has caused alarm because of its similarity to SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-2003. Like SARS, it can spread among people through the respiratory tract. The first case of the new virus was confirmed on December 31, 2019.

The virus has since been detected in Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and the United States.

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Hong Kong First Death from New Coronavirus

reporter 1222 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 08:04:07 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Hong Kong reported its first death from the newly identified coronavirus on Tuesday, the second outside mainland China from an outbreak that has killed more than 420 people, spread around the world and raised fears for global economic growth.

China’s currency and stock markets steadied in choppy trade after anxiety over the coronavirus hit the Yuan on Monday and erased some $400 billion in market value from Shanghai’s benchmark index.

Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, said it had asked all casino operators to suspend operations for two weeks to help curb the spread of the virus, Reuters reported.

More foreigners were evacuated from China’s locked-down central city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, and thousands of people were stranded on a Japanese cruise ship after a passenger tested positive for the virus.

The Hong Kong fatality brought the total death toll from the virus to 427, including a man who died in the Philippines last week after visiting Wuhan. Chinese authorities said the toll in China rose by a record 64 from the previous day to 425, mostly in Hubei province of which Wuhan is capital.

New cases were reported in the United States including a patient in California who was infected through close contact with someone in the same household who had been infected in China.

It marked the second instance of person-to-person spread of the virus in the United States after another such case was reported last week in Illinois.

“We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The total number of infections in China rose by 3,235 to 20,438, and there were at least 151 cases in 23 other countries and regions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the flu-like virus a global emergency and experts say much is still unknown about the pathogen, including its mortality rate and transmission pathways.

Such uncertainties are leading some countries to take extreme measures to stem the spread. Australia sent hundreds of evacuees from Wuhan to a remote island in the Indian Ocean, while Japan ordered the quarantine of a cruise ship carrying more than 3,000 people after a Hong Kong man who sailed on it last month tested positive for coronavirus.

In Hong Kong, hospital staff said the 39-year-old male victim had a pre-existing chronic illness and had visited Wuhan in January before falling ill.

Hundreds of medical workers in the former British colony held a second day of strikes to force the government to completely close the city’s borders with mainland China, a day after embattled leader Carrie Lam left three remaining checkpoints open.

The Asian financial center has confirmed 15 cases of the coronavirus and its public hospital network is struggling to cope with a deluge of patients and measures to contain the epidemic.

Hong Kong was badly hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), another coronavirus that emerged from China in 2002 and killed almost 800 people around the world. According to WHO figures, SARS killed 299 people in Hong Kong during that outbreak.

Chinese data suggest that the new virus, while much more contagious than SARS, is significantly less lethal, although such numbers can evolve rapidly.

In Wuhan, authorities started converting a gymnasium, exhibition center and cultural complex into makeshift hospitals with more than 3,400 beds for patients suffering from mild cases of the infection, the official Changjiang Daily said.

The United States said on Friday it would block nearly all foreign visitors who have been to China within the past 14 days, joining Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Vietnam and others who have imposed similar restrictions.

China accused the United States on Monday of scaremongering and said on Tuesday it would welcome its help to fight the outbreak.

“China has noted that the United States has repeatedly expressed its willingness to provide assistance to China, and hopes that the relevant assistance will be provided soon,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement on the ministry’s website.

The White House said China had accepted its offer to have US experts as part of a WHO mission to study and help combat the virus.

Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province, escalated its war of words over the island’s exclusion from the WHO, saying “vile” China was preventing it from getting timely information about the outbreak.

With Wuhan and some other cities in virtual lockdown, travel severely restricted and China facing increasing international isolation, fears of wider economic disruption are growing.

Sources from the OPEC oil cartel said producers were considering cutting output by almost a third to support prices.

Airlines around the world have stopped flights to parts of China. A suspension by the United Arab Emirates on Monday will affect the Persian Gulf airlines Etihad and Emirates.

Some economists predict world economic output will shrink by 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points due to China’s lockdown.

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World Bank Loan to China MUst Stop; Trump Says

reporter 1222 — Sat, 07 Dec 2019 09:23:41 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – US President Donald Trump on Friday called for the World Bank to stop giving loan to China, one day after the institution adopted a lending plan to Beijing over Washington’s objections.

The World Bank on Thursday adopted a plan to aid China with $1 billion to $1.5 billion in low-interest loans annually through June 2025. The plan calls for lending to “gradually decline” from the previous five-year average of $1.8 billion.

“Why is the World Bank loaning money to China? Can this be possible? China has plenty of money, and if they don’t, they create it. STOP!” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

“World Bank lending to China has fallen sharply and will continue to reduce as part of our agreement with all our shareholders including the United States,” the World Bank said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

“We eliminate lending as countries get richer.”

Spokespeople for the White House declined to comment on the record.

The World Bank loan to China worths $1.3 billion in the fiscal 2019 year, which ended on June 30, a decrease from around $2.4 billion in fiscal 2017.

But the fall in the World Bank’s loans to China is not swift enough for the Trump administration, which has argued that Beijing is too wealthy for international aid.

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