China Records Slowest Growth in Nearly 3 Decades After Trump Trade War
China’s economy is showing signs of damage as President Donald Trump continues to put pressure on America’s largest trading partner.
On Monday, China officially posted that its economic growth was the lowest since 1990.
Although China said its economy grew at 6.6 percent, that was the smallest gain in 28 years, CNN reported.
Experts are also looking at 2019 and expect that China’s growth could be in the range of 6 to 6.3 percent, CNBC reported.
Some experts said China’s official figures could even be masking a more severe slowdown.
“The official GDP figures have been too stable in recent years to be a good guide to China’s economic performance,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, according to CNBC.
Over the past decade, China has been responsible for about a third of the world’s economic growth.
“The world economy is growing more slowly than expected, and risks are rising,” said Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, according to The New York Times. “Does that mean that a global recession is around the corner? No.
“But the risk of a sharper decline in global growth has certainly increased.”
Chen Xingdong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas, said the Chinese government is unlikely to pour money into the economy.
“What China can really do this year is to prevent deflation, prevent a recession and a hard landing in the economy,” Chen said.
One commentator said that in addition to its trade war with Trump, China is losing out on foreign investment.
“European investment in China is going down,” Cecilia Malmström, the European Union’s commissioner of trade, according to The New York Times. “That is more because it is becoming increasingly complicated to do business there, with the forced technology transfer, with the lack of transparency, discrimination as compared to Chinese companies, with the massive subsidies of state-owned companies.”
Trump’s efforts to revamp trade policies with China have put pressure on the Chinese economy.
INCREDIBLE! TRUMP HAS WON! Bye Bye Trade War? China Agrees to Begin $1 Trillion US Buying Spree https://t.co/0IAPf7ArcS
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) January 18, 2019
In its efforts to address the impact of the trade dispute, China has proposed a six-year $1 trillion plan to increase American imports, according to Bloomberg.
Trump said Saturday that he was optimistic about U.S. talks with China.
“Things are going very well with China and with trade,” he said, according to a White House media pool report. “There were some false reports about sanctions being removed, we have taken in tremendous amounts of money into the United States because of the sanctions, and we’ll see how it goes. And if we make a deal, certainly we wouldn’t have sanctions.
“And if we don’t make a deal — we will, but I think China’s been, we’ve really had a very extraordinary number of meetings, and a deal could very well happen with China.
“It’s going very well, I would say about as well as it could possibly go. And without a question.”
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