Chinese solar manufacturers will face a reckoning next year, with overcapacity and a fierce price war forcing many smaller firms out of business, according to the head of Anhui Huasun Energy Co., Bloomberg News reported. “A considerable number of smaller companies won’t be able to survive the first half of next year,” Xu Xiaohua, chairman and chief executive officer of the privately held firm, said in a panel discussion at the BloombergNEF Summit in Shanghai. However, the consolidation should pave the way for a rebound in prices toward the end of the year, he said.
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China’s central bank governor reaffirmed plans for a supportive monetary policy to promote growth next year, as the economy faces fresh challenges from a looming trade war with the U.S. during Donald Trump’s second term, Bloomberg News reported. The People’s Bank of China will “adhere to an accommodative monetary policy stance and orientation” in 2025, Governor Pan Gongsheng said at a financial forum in Beijing on Monday, according to a statement published by the central bank.
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A deluge of cheap Chinese goods washing over the developing world is jacking up tensions between China and the Global South, complicating Beijing’s plans to build alliances as it confronts escalating trade tensions with the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. With President-elect Donald Trump saying he plans to significantly increase tariffs on China, Beijing is hoping to unload more of its excess factory production to developing-world countries, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Brazil.
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In China’s sluggish property market, the latest sales pitch isn’t marble countertops, but residency papers, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a bid to support the real-estate market, more than a dozen Chinese cities have rolled out plans that would give something akin to permanent residency to home buyers. The southern economic hub of Guangzhou recently joined the list, making it the first of China’s biggest, tier-one cities—which also include Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen—to do so.
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Faced with a bruising price war in the fast growing but crowded domestic market for electric vehicles, Chinese automobile manufacturers are pressuring suppliers to deliver hefty cost cuts, the New York Times reported. China’s BYD, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles, asked a supplier to reduce its product prices by 10 percent starting next year, according to a company email that was apparently leaked and circulated widely on the internet in China.
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China's factory activity expanded modestly for a second straight month in November, an official survey showed, adding to a string of recent data suggesting a blitz of stimulus is finally trickling through the world's second-largest economy just as Donald Trump ramps up his trade threats, Reuters reported. The National Bureau of Statistics purchasing managers' index (PMI) on Saturday rose to 50.3 - a seven-month high - from 50.1 in October, above the 50-mark separating growth from contraction and beating a median forecast of 50.2 in a Reuters poll.
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Hundreds of Chinese investors who lost savings in the collapse of China Evergrande launched a coordinated campaign this month to press authorities for an update on the failed property developer, Reuters reported. In the previously unreported action, small groups of disgruntled investors turned up at three Shenzhen government offices in succession to ask for an update on an investigation launched more than a year ago, the people told Reuters. They said they hoped this method of applying pressure on officials would not be deemed as a form of unlawful public protest.
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Donald Trump’s new tariff pledges send a clear signal that he wants to rewrite the terms of North America’s free-trade pact and follow through with plans to hit China with tariffs, demonstrating to allies and adversaries alike that he is serious about renewing confrontation over a global trading system that he believes costs the U.S. dearly, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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China’s central bank kept a key policy rate steady in November and drained billions in liquidity from the financial system via a medium-term liquidity management tool, the Wall Street Journal reported. The People’s Bank of China on Monday injected 900 billion yuan of liquidity, or about $124.26 billion, into the banking system via its one-year medium-term lending facility at an unchanged rate of 2.00%. That compared with a total of 1.45 trillion yuan of such loans due this month, representing a net drain of 550 billion yuan in November.
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