As China’s foreign exchange reserves threaten to tumble below the critical $3 trillion mark, there are fears that it will set off a vicious cycle of more outflows and currency depreciation.
A five-year plan, 2016-2020, to save energy and cut emissions was issued by the Chinese State Council, setting a goal to cut energy consumption by 15 percent in 2020 compared with 2015.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the National Development and Reform Commission are revising the foreign investment industry catalogue.
The Chinese economy stabilized during the middle of 2016, but there is disagreement about the country’s growth outlook.
China has lost the top position as an investment destination to India, and has now opened up more sectors for foreign investors in order to catch up in the race between the two countries.
According to the director of the Center for Economic Diplomacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China’s reputation as the world’s factory is increasingly threatened by rising costs, the accelerated manufacturing resurgence in various developed countries and the growing competitiveness of emerging economies. This situation has prompted numerous Chinese manufacturers to move their factories offshore. Manufacturing has long been at the foundation of China’s rise into a global economic power and the country needs to consolidate this manufacturing foundation. Otherwise China will risk hollowing out its real economy before it grows strong enough.
A transformation is happening in global energy markets that’s worth noting: solar power is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity.
In 2016 there were more than 260 anti-dumping measures or investigations against Chinese goods. This year’s number represents a roughly 17.7% rise from 2015. The measures were aimed at a wide range of Chinese goods but the main target was Chinese steel products. “All these countries like to blame China for their own problems in the steel industry, but China didn’t create the problems for them, it’s sluggish global demand amid weak economic growth that caused the problem,” said a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
One feature of crude oil and products pricing is the tug-of-war between long-term structural drivers and short-term factors, a scenario being played out in Asian fuel markets. Profit margins for both gasoline and diesel traded in Singapore have staged strong rallies in the past three months. The main factor behind this has been a tightening of the market, with seasonal maintenance at refineries across the region. This short-term factor has influenced pricing, and it appears to be outweighing the longer-term structural driver of steadily rising Chinese fuel exports.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China’s preliminary estimates, the country’s gross domestic product in the first three quarters of this year was 52,997.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.7 percent. The value added of primary industry was 4,066.6 billion yuan, up by 3.5 percent year-on-year; the value-added of secondary industry was 20,941.5 billion yuan, up by 6.1 percent; and that of tertiary industry was 27,989.0 billion yuan, up by 7.6 percent. Third quarter GDP rose by 1.8 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
OEF REVIEW:China’s crude oil output is at a 6-year low as the country’s state-run energy companies continued to pump less from aging, high-cost fields. Production during August dropped 9.9 percent and during the first eight months of the year output dropped 5.7 percent. The country is forecast to lead production declines across Asia, helping tighten the global market as the world’s largest consuming region relies more on overseas supplies. China’s imports rebounded last month to the highest since April. Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong pointed out that ”China’s crude output won’t see an apparent rebound unless Brent recovers to $60 a barrel level, as most of China’s aging oilfields can’t make a profit below this price,” adding that ”Massive capital expenditure cuts have translated to more oil supply destruction.”
OEF REVIEW:After a long period of dwindling demand, China’s oil consumption showed first signs of stabilizing in June. Total apparent oil demand in the world’s second-largest oil consumer averaged 11.32 million barrels a day that month, up 4% from May. Beijing does not release official data on oil demand and stocks, but Platts, by adding refining output as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics, and net imports as reported by the customs department, apparent demand for gasoil of 3.39 million barrels a day in June was down 6.4% year-on-year but up from the 70-month low of 3.14 million barrels a day in May. Fuel oil demand in June dropped 31.6% year on year to 765,000 b/d, and was 10.9% lower from May levels, and apparent demand for gasoline in June recovered from May, with a 4.6% month-on-month rise to 2.81 million barrels a day, which was also 2.6% higher than the same month last year.
One of the structural flaws driving China’s instability is the existance of a investment situation where profits of state-owned enterprises, known as SOEs, are largely privatised to SOE personnel and losses of SOEs are socialised on to the state budget. This is the cause of the large amount of excess capacity in China’s heavy industries today, and also of the serious non-performing loan problem in state-owned banks. The growing presence of “zombie” firms coincides with the downward trend in the growth of productivity. The social pain resulting from necessary economic adjustments will have to be addressed.
OEF REVIEW:Civilian planes landed on Subi reef and Mischief reef for the first time on July 12th giving China three operational runways in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. A military transport plane visited Fiery Cross Reef earlier this year but there is no evidence that Beijing has deployed military aircraft to these outposts. The reefs can easily accommodate any fighter-jet in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force or Naval Aviation.
OEF REVIEW:Ship tracking data, sourced from Bloomberg, shows that 83 supertankers carrying around 166 million barrels of oil are headed to China, which has stockpiled an impressive 787,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016 – the highest Chinese oil stockpiling rate since 2014. Additionally, in January 2015 it was reported that China’s strategic petroleum reserve would be increased from 30 days to 90 days. Later in January 2016, it was revealed that China was building underground oil storage facilities to complement its above-ground storage tanks. So it could be considered in the light of this that in contrast to Saudi Arabia, which is a swing producer, China is acting like a swing consumer. Such increased demand from China has helped in lapping up excess oil production, and if If its imports drop, according to Oil Price, the world will return to the oil supply glut and oil prices will retrace back to the lower $30 a barrel.
OEF REVIEW:A Chinese group led by a private company is planning to build a $15 billion petrochemical complex and refinery on an island near Shanghai. This would be the country’s first and largest energy installation to be built by a non-state investor and is one of the first concrete signs of Beijing’s stated desire to experiment with mixed-ownership in its massive state-controlled energy sector. The complex would include a 400,000 barrels per day refinery and a 1.4 million tonnes a year ethylene plant.
OEF REVIEW:For years now, China’s been lavishly courting friends across the developing world. Commodity-dependent countries get cheap financing for development; China gains diplomatic clout and a bargain on those commodities. Both sides win – that is, until they don’t. The perils of this strategy are quickly becoming apparent. In recent years, changes of government in countries such as Myanmar and Sri Lanka have led to questions about deals signed with China under previous administrations. Now, Venezuela’s slow-motion meltdown is exposing just how terrible these deals can be for both borrowers and for China.
OEF REVIEW:China’s crude imports will rise further from a record this year to feed its expanding refining sector and strategic reserves, according to Standard Chartered Bank. The nation’s average crude imports will rise by as much as 600,000 barrels per day this year, analysts including Priya N. Balchandani said in a March 24th report. Imports last month surged above 8 million barrels per day for the first time and exceeded volumes shipped to the U.S., the world’s top oil user, according to the bank. Standard Chartered expects China’s crude imports will top 10 million barrels per day by late 2018 or early 2019.
OEF REVIEW:The AIIB and NDB are both headquartered in China and there is a strong relationship between these two institutions. Within the infrastructure space, there is such a huge funding gap that all of these institutions can work together. All of us contribute to filling that funding gap. What sets the AIIB and NDB apart is that we are focused on the five BRICS countries, while the AIIB is focused on Asia, so we have a geographical difference. But for big regional projects in Asia, we very much welcome the opportunity to partner with the AIIB to co-finance some projects. Rather than setting up a rival institution, we consider the NDB as being complementary to the existing financial architecture…
OEF REVIEW:Traders were quick to hit their sell buttons as official figures released in Beijing today showed exports in February were down a whopping 25.4 percent from the previous year – equal to the worst performance since May 2009, when the world was in the grips of a global recession. Imports were down by 13.8 percent, the 16th consecutive decline.
