Taps Coogan – October 11th, 2020

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It’s broadly understood that China’s official economic statistics are political statements more than measures of actual economic activity, leaving the job of measuring changes in China’s actual economy to people like Leland Miller, CEO of China Beige Book International. Along those lines, Mr. Leland recently spoke with CNBC to warn that while China’s economic recovery has been better than most countries, it is nowhere near as rosy as the Communist Party is portraying, and growth in every sector he observes is negative year-over-year.

Some excerpts from Leland Miller:

“I don’t want to talk down the fact that China has had a very impressive recovery… They’re the fastest to emerge from the Coronavirus… but it’s very important to understand the what China is seeing right now is an improvement and a recovery but not a year-on-year recovery and we look across our sectors and we don’t see an improvement year-on-year in anything… You see the larger cities, you see the coastal regions doing much much better than the rest of the country. There is really two recoveries going on…”

“We are not seeing dramatic service sector job recovery. We’re seeing it get better in retail, manufacturing, property, and all these other sectors are hiring much more…”

For what it’s worth, China was already seeing a major slowdown in growth in 2019 and is likely to see its population peak in the next few years. Although the Chinese government is unlikely to officially acknowledge it, 2020 is likely to see negative GDP in China for the first time in decades.

There is more to the discussion, so enjoy the full video above.

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