Observers, at the moment, are generally keeping their forecasts for China’s 2024 economic performance in a holding pattern — an understandable posture after a year of off-the-mark predictions on a scale not seen in recent memory. That may be due both to last year’s shocking failure of China’s economy to significantly rebound in nearly all vital sectors. But this year so far is reinforcing the idea that China may simply be in a new normal marked by slower growth.
We are already seeing weakness in China’s core economic driver of manufacturing, where official data showed that activity shrank for a third straight month in December, even worse than forecast. Home sales plummeted at an even faster rate in December, at 34.6% from a year earlier to 451.3 billion yuan ($64 billion), compared with a 29.6% decline in November, according to China Real Estate Information. That means China’s largest developers’ full 2023 sales are 16.5% lower than in 2022, worse than even often optimistic domestic analysts’ estimate …
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
We are already seeing weakness in China’s core economic driver of manufacturing, where official data showed that activity shrank for a third straight month in December, even worse than forecast. Home sales plummeted at an even faster rate in December, at 34.6% from a year earlier to 451.3 billion yuan ($64 billion), compared with a 29.6% decline in November, according to China Real Estate Information. That means China’s largest developers’ full 2023 sales are 16.5% lower than in 2022, worse than even often optimistic domestic analysts’ estimate …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]