| isolated freak |
Posted
on 18-Oct-03 12:14 AM
An interesting piece from The Guardian.
Chinese economy on course to outstrip UK
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Saturday October 18, 2003
The Guardian
China, the world's fastest growing economy, is on course to overtake Britain in two years or so, according to figures released yesterday that show national output is moving forward so fast that the country is in danger of overheating.
With fears of Sars receding, the economy surged 9.1% in the July-September period as domestic firms ramped up investment and foreign manufacturers such as Ford and Sony once again poured money into a country that has become the workshop of the world.
According to government officials, the amount of economic activity in China soared to RMB7.9 trillion (£570bn) in the first nine months of the year, putting China on course to achieve a growth rate of 8.5% for 2003 - the fastest in more than five years.
If the country can maintain this pace it will overtake Britain and France to become the world's fourth biggest economy well before the end of 2005.
Business leaders are already hailing China as the powerhouse for growth in Asia - a role once held by Japan. With neighbouring nations increasing sales of raw materials to factories in China, imports jumped by 40.5% in the first nine months of the year.
Many of those factories are foreign-owned - as multinational firms rush to exploit China's abundant cheap labour. The latest is Ford, which announced plans yesterday for a new $1.5bn (£900m) plant in Chongching.
"China is really the engine that drives the entire region," Ford's chief executive officer, William Clay Ford, told reporters. "We do expect to expand aggressively in China."
Japanese manufacturers are also pumping cash into their neighbour's economy. Sony, the world's second-biggest consumer electronics maker, revealed yesterday it has invested $8bn in China and forecast that the country would become its second biggest market - behind only the US - within five years.
Although tens of millions of rural Chinese people scratch out a living well below the poverty line, the average disposable income in towns and cities - home to two-fifths of China's 1.3bn people - rose 9% to RMB6,347 (£460) in the first nine months of this year, the statistics bureau said.
The government boasted that its measures had created 6.25m jobs in the first nine months of the year, leaving an urban unemployment rate of 4.2%. Much of the new work was created through construction projects in cities including Shanghai, as well as huge public infrastructure under takings such as the Three Gorges dam - the world's biggest engineering project.
But the risks for the Chinese economy are growing along with its size. A flood of spending on property and construction has raised fears of overheating and highlighted the problems of overlending by Chinese banks. With credit easy to acquire, fixed-asset investment rose 30.5% in the first nine months of this year.
Such is the risk of overheating that economists now believe the government is downplaying the pace of growth. GDP figures have long been criticised as unreliable - though usually for being exaggerated rather than too modest.
The political dangers are also rising. With a US presidential election due next year, the Bush administration has criticised China's trade policies - which American politicians blame for the loss of millions of US jobs.
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| suva chintak |
Posted
on 19-Oct-03 04:49 PM
IF jyu,
The compliments for Chinese achievements seem to be coming from every corner now: The New York Times today devoted its front page to sing praise to the Chinese miracle. Most interestingly, the lead story says that the 50-year-old US dominance in the Asia-Pacific region is slowly being supplanted by China.
This is not just because of China's economic muscle. Many Asian countries are now beginning to turn to China for economic cooperation and guidance because of China's peaceful diplomatic relation with most of the countries in the region. Unilke the US, the Chinese do not use diktat to gain compliance. The Chinese do not look aggressive and violent to the regional neighbors.
If they can sustain this phenomenal level of growth (8%) for the next 20 years and also retain the present political stability, they are going to be a global power to rival the west. I was amazed by how much construction and infrastructural work was going all over China...it looks like a nation under construction. One businessman I managed to talk to on the train from Beijing to Xian said that almost 40 per cent of all construction cranes are in China now !
The Three Gorges Dam is perhaps is indicative of this boom...the world's largest engineering project is going to produce a mind-boggling 18200 mega watts of power! For comparision, Nepal's total electric output is less than 700 mega watts! Cruising down the Yangtze river, I thought this was going to be their second Great Wall project...the whole thing is on such a massive scale.
When they link Tibet with a railway line in the next couple of years, it will offer Nepal an alternative economic lifeline to the outside world. Nepal should definitely start thinking about how it can best benefit and enhance its options by connecting to the booming economic power house to the north. From tourism, trade, and power, the possibilities could be endless.
Who would have imagined that a hybrid born of political communism and economic capitalism would produce such a winning formula? Pragmatism, not dogmatism seems to rule the world!
SC
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 20-Oct-03 09:39 AM
Who would have imagined that a hybrid born of political communism and economic capitalism would produce such a winning formula? Pragmatism, not dogmatism seems to rule the world!
I wanquan (totallY) agree with you.
Yes, 1/3 of the world's total cranes are in China. I think C stands for China, Cranes and Construction! Whether its Beijing, Shanghai or Tianjin or any town/city, you see cranes everywhere and people working on construction sites/projects 24/7. And more construction and more cranes in near future as China works on the final round of preparations for the Beijing Olympics 2008 and Shanghai World Expo 2010.
"Being rich is glorious".. hoina ta SC jyu?
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