CHINA-ECONOMY: RHODIUM GROUP ASSES BLEAK FUTURE FOR CHINA'S ECONOMIC RECOVERY
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A recent assessment by the Rhodium Group maintained that while the pace of new COVID-2019 transmissions is coming down in China, but the pathway to economic recovery remains deeply uncertain. Much-needed economic reforms will be necessarily delayed, but Beijing can improve the outlook by demonstrating firm intent to reinvigorate the reform agenda post-virus. Asserting that China endured a severe economic downturn in the first quarter of 2020, it said the Transportation numbers are the most telling — there were 82% fewer trips in the 25 days following the Lunar New Year in 2020 relative to 2019, an early signal that workers were not coming back from the countryside. Coal consumption by the six largest power plants in China fell over 40%. Property sales in major cities were near-zero through February. Manufacturing and services recorded major contractions according to government and private surveys. The shutdown of China’s economy is even visible from space—satellite readings show that nitrogen oxide and dioxide emissions (indicators of activity) from swaths of the industrial heartland all but disappeared.
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