BEIJING: Measured by the percentage of people living in its cities, China's urbanization rate currently stands at about 48 percent, according to official statistics. Given that the share of city dwellers was only 18 percent just 30 years ago, this (...)
BEIJING: Not long after the United States Federal Reserve Board announced its second round of “quantitative easing” (known as QE2), the People's Bank of China (PBC), China's central bank, announced two increases of 0.5 percentage points in the (...)
BEIJING: A major new target in the “Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development” that China just unveiled is to boost the growth rate for household (disposable) income so that it equals the growth rate of the country's GDP. The reason is (...)
BEIJING: China's Henan province has a population of about 100 million — larger than that of most countries. In China's administrative system, a province is at the highest level of sub-national government, followed by counties, cities, and townships. (...)
BEIJING: Reports about labor shortages, wage disputes, and wage increases for migrant workers in China have abounded of late. They naturally raised concerns, or expectations, that China's labor-cost advantages may be disappearing.
It is my hope (...)
BEIJING: China's national savings rate has been very high in recent years, amounting to 52 percent of GDP in 2008 (the most recent year for which statistics are available), and is often blamed for today's global imbalances. Countries that save too (...)
BEIJING: China's GDP growth this year may approach 10%. While some countries are still dealing with economic crisis or its aftermath, China's challenge is — once again — how to manage a boom.
Thanks to decisive policy moves to pre-empt a housing (...)
BEIJING: China registered a monthly trade deficit of $7.2 billion in March 2010, its first since April 2004. And yet, at around the same time, the United States Congress issued its loudest call ever to classify China as an exchange-rate manipulator, (...)
BEIJING: The exchange rate of the renminbi has once again become a target of the United States Congress. China-bashing, it seems, is back in fashion in America.
But this round of China-bashing appears stranger than the last one. When Congress (...)
BEIJING: On the eve of Chinese New Year, the People's Bank of China (PBC) surprised the market by announcing - for the second consecutive time in a month - an increase in banks' mandatory-reserve ratio by 50 basis points, bringing it to 16.5%. (...)
BEIJING: China's GDP is estimated to have grown 8.7% year on year in 2009 - once again the highest rate in the world - with the fourth-quarter increase reaching 10.7%, compared to 6.3% in the fourth quarter of 2008. For much of the world, China's (...)