{"id":29117,"date":"2015-08-16T13:38:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-16T11:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=29117"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:25:26","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T07:25:26","slug":"29117","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/29117\/","title":{"rendered":"Is China’s Slowdown Real?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elliot Wilson write: In a factory building wind turbines in China, workers have been given the day off. <\/span>\u00a0The factory, has not run at close to full capacity for a year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The company\u2019s woes are a microcosm of the daunting challenges that face China\u2019s stuttering economy, the world\u2019s second largest after the United States. This week China devalued its currency by 3.6 per cent in a dramatic bid to encourage exports. \u00a0Even the threat of a significant slowdown in China\u2019s economy could be enough to send the rest of the world tumbling back into recession.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the polluted central metropolis of Zhengzhou, to Shenyang in the rustbelt northeast, the overwhelming sense is one of pessimism and urban decay. Idle cranes and vacant building sites dot the landscape. The ghost towns of legend \u2014 such as Ordos City in Inner Mongolia \u2014 are all too real, and remain a silent, cautionary reminder of the perils of engineered growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past year, every key indicator has begun pointing to bad times ahead. Electricity consumption, usually the most reliable single gauge of economic health in the mainland, expanded at the slowest rate in three decades in the year to June. Because of falling Chinese industrial demand, global commodity prices have slumped, threatening growth in producer countries from Australia to Zambia. Chinese house prices have stagnated, while the last time rail-freight volumes were higher than the year before was last September. Last week brought yet more bad news, with exports sliding 8.3 per cent in July from last year\u2019s figures, imports falling for the ninth month in a row, and data pointing to further weakness in industrial output, capital investment and retail spending.\u00a0China’s Slowdown<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"China's<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elliot Wilson write: In a factory building wind turbines in China, workers have been given the day off. \u00a0The factory, has not run at close to full capacity for a year.\u00a0 The company\u2019s woes are a microcosm of the daunting … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t