China

The International Monetary Fund warned on Tuesday of risks posed by China’s financial and property sectors even as it took a more optimistic view on the country’s economic growth, the New York Times reported. The IMF forecast that China’s economy will expand 5.4 percent this year and 4.6 percent in 2024. Each estimate was 0.4 percentage points higher than the fund had predicted four weeks earlier.

After lending $1.3 trillion to developing countries, mainly for big-ticket infrastructure projects, China has shifted its focus to bailing out many of those same countries from piles of debt, the New York Times reported. The initial loans were mostly part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, started in 2013 to build stronger transportation, communications and political links in more than 150 countries. But now the two main Chinese state banks that provided most of the infrastructure loans have reduced their new lending.

Iron ore has reached “unreasonable” levels that are hurting Chinese steel mills, according to China Mineral Resources Group, the state-backed firm trying to boost Beijing’s sway over prices, Bloomberg reported. Elevated costs are squeezing margins at steelmakers in the world’s top producer, Guo Bin, President of China Minerals, said at an event in Shanghai during the China International Import Expo. There needs to be more effort to “improve” pricing systems for raw materials, Guo said.

China’s deflationary pressures just aren’t going away, underscoring the fragility of the economic recovery as 2023 enters the home stretch, Bloomberg News reported. Data due Thursday will likely show that Chinese consumer prices slid back into deflation in October, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Producer prices also probably declined for a 13th consecutive month. Consumer costs have been stubbornly weak this year. The consumer price index slipped into deflation in July and has since been teetering on and off the edge of negative year-on-year growth.

Japanese stocks have trounced their Chinese peers this year, but some investors are betting the tide is about to turn, Bloomberg reported. Headwinds are growing for Japanese equities, including deteriorating global growth and concern the era of yen weakness that has bolstered exporters’ earnings may be nearly over as the central bank comes under pressure to tighten policy. Conversely, optimism is building that Beijing’s efforts to bolster the economy and local equity markets will help end a slump that has made Chinese equities among the world’s worst performers this year.