China’s manufacturing activity declined for the third straight month in June as trade frictions with the U.S. continued to weigh on the world’s second-largest economy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index for June–the first full month after the China-U.S. trade truce was reached in London–came in at 49.7, edging up from May’s 49.5 and matching the 49.7 tipped by a Wall Street Journal poll of economists, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
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China’s home sales extended their slump in June, putting further strain on the economy and underscoring the impetus for fresh support measures, Bloomberg News reported. The value of new-home sales from the 100 largest property companies stood at 339 billion yuan ($47.3 billion), the latest preliminary data from China Real Estate Information Corp. on Monday showed. That represents a 23% fall from a year ago, according to Bloomberg calculations. June’s sales follows an 8.6% decline in May. On a monthly basis, however, the latest sales were up 14.7% from May, CRIC said.
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Premier Li Qiang has projected confidence that China can turn consumption into a driver for the economy, while also portraying his nation as a stabilizing force in a rapidly shifting global trade landscape, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers were growing the nation “into a mega-sized consumer powerhouse on top of its solid foundation as a manufacturing power,” Li said in a speech at the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Tianjin on Wednesday.
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Zhejiang Hozon New Energy Automobile, the owner of Chinese electric vehicle brand Neta, officially entered bankruptcy proceedings on Thursday, China's state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday, Reuters reported. Multiple Neta stores in Shanghai have been closed, the report said. According to China's national corporate bankruptcy disclosure platform, a creditor last month filed a bankruptcy petition against the firm. Read more.
The governor of China’s central bank outlined a plan on Wednesday for a global financial system that relies on several major currencies, not just the dollar, as Beijing steps up its campaign to weaken the U.S. dollar’s primacy, the New York Times reported. Pan Gongsheng, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, did not mention the dollar by name but gave an extended critique of the potential dangers of international reliance on a single country’s currency. In a coded reference to the U.S., Mr.
As the price of gold soared, Julie Li thought her investment in the precious metal was the smartest decision she had ever made. Across China, many like her have poured their savings into gold, lured by companies promising hefty returns far into the future, according to a New York Times analysis. About a year ago, Ms. Li invested about $35,000 in gold bars through Yongkun Gold, a company that runs an online platform and dozens of jewelry shops in eastern China. The investments performed so well that she used a credit card to put in $20,000 more. Last month, Ms.
Just three years ago, Bowling Green, Ky., was celebrating the largest industrial investment ever made in the city, a new sprawling electric-vehicle battery factory that would create 2,000 jobs. Today, the building is there. The jobs aren’t, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The Chinese-owned company behind the factory quietly stopped working on the $2 billion plant last September, according to current and former employees. Now there is just a massive metal shell of a building with no interior equipment.
Two decades ago, China shocked the United States with its ability to make and ship things fast and inexpensively on a scale never before seen, the New York Times reported. The resulting surge of exports reshaped America’s economy and its politics. Today, a new China shock is cascading across the globe from Indonesia to Germany to Brazil. As President Trump’s tariffs start to shut China out of the U.S., its biggest market, Chinese factories are sending their toys, cars and shoes to other countries at a pace that is reshaping economies and geopolitics.