The news from China is unremittingly bad – a cataclysm of economic distress and woe. Combined with concerns on law and transparency, China is now off many investment lists. Yet it’s still a growing economy with a massive middle class of consumers. There are opportunities.
While the rest of the world hiked to fight inflation, China has embarked a sprint to reopen the economy; easing rates, mortgages, property lending and loans. The question is can it succeed when demographics, trade and the laws of growth may have already moved against them?
Consequences are unavoidable. Pension savers are crushed by interest rate repression and the changing demographics of Covid, while the deluge of debt fuelled by low rates does nothing for economic sustainability.
