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1. Picking Up Steam
The Chinese economy, which suffered a slowdown in the first three quarters, picked up steam thanks to pro-growth measures and policy loosening. Economic indicators in the fourth quarter showed that the country was on a moderate path of recovery.
China’s economy grew 7.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2012, slower than the 7.6-percent growth in the second and the 8.1-percent growth in the first. Thirdquarter GDP growth marked the slowest quarterly growth in more than three years.
China has rolled out an array of measures to buoy the slowing economy, including two cuts to its benchmark interest rate, an easing of reserve requirements by banks and the approval of infrastructure projects worth more than 1 trillion yuan.
China’s consumer price index grew 2 percent year on year in November, up 0.1 percent from a 33-month low of 1.7 percent in October.
November’s purchasinh managers index, a gauge of performance in the manufacturing industry, edged up a notch from its flash reading of 50.4 to 50.5, the highest in 13 months.
China’s value-added industrial output rose 10.1 percent year on year in November, picking up from 9.6 percent in October and 9.2 percent in September.
2. Strategic Emerging Industries in Focus
While some traditional industries underperformed due to sluggish overseas demand and a plunge in investment, China pinned its hopes on strategic emerging industries.
On July 20, the State Council unveiled a sweeping national development plan for strategic emerging industries during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15), in a bid to make them new growth engines of the Chinese economy.
Strategic emerging industries, including information technology, biology, advanced equipment manufacturing, new energy, new materials and new-energy vehicles, accounted for less than 4 percent of the GDP in 2010. The plan sets a target of 8 percent of the GDP by 2015 and 15 percent by 2020.
According to the State Council, spurring the development of emerging industries means greater market reform and freedoms, and a market admission mechanism for private capital will be needed.
3. A Potential to Spend
Chinese citizens’ consumption power, especially over the Internet, was on full display in 2012, illustrating the potential for increased domestic consumption as the country attempts to shift its economy away from a reliance on manufacturing exports. Sales revenue for the retail and catering sectors totaled 800.6 billion yuan ($127.3 billion), up 15 percent year on year, during the 2012 Golden Week, which ran from September 30 to October 7.
A total of 425 million Chinese traveled during the period, up 40.9 percent, resulting in 210.5 billion yuan ($33.47 billion) for the tourism industry.
November 11 is dubbed Singles Day, and it means massive discounts for online shoppers nationwide.
The 2012 Singles Day saw over 213 million Internet users swarm Taobao and Tmall, two websites operated by the Hangzhou-based Alibaba Group, for its 24-hour 50-percent-off carnival. Together the sites raked in a record 19.1 billion yuan ($3.07 billion), up 260 percent year on year. Other major e-commerce players all reaped record-breaking profits, which marked the biggest e-commerce sales day on record.
4. Open to Private Capital
Several ministries issued provisions allowing private capital to invest in monopolized industries in an unprecedented move to spur more competition.
In May, the China Banking Regulatory Commission released new provisions to support private capital entering the banking sector.
In June, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled provisions to encourage the presence and participation of private capital in the telecom industry.
That same month, the Ministry of Commerce released regulations on allowing more private capital to enter the commercial, trade and logistics sectors. The new regulations state that private companies have access to the transportation and retail sales of refined oil products. More government subsidies will be earmarked to solve the financing problems of private small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in commerce, trade and logistics.
In July, the Ministry of Culture released provisions to attract private investment in the cultural sector.
5. Financial Reform
China launched state-led financial reforms to better support the economy.
On March 28, the State Council gave the go ahead to establish a pilot zone for comprehensive financial reform in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China’s private sector powerhouse. The plan requires the city government to set up a financial mechanism to facilitate the locality’s social and economic development. It also outlines 12 tasks for the city to focus on during the reform process, such as encouraging and supporting the participation of private capital in local financial institutions. On April 12, Shenzhen, the origin of China’s economic reform in the late 1970s, followed suit with guidelines for financial reforms. The focus of Shenzhen’s financial reforms will be to serve the development of the real economy, including the introduction of pilot two-way trans-border loans between the mainland and Hong Kong, the establishment of the Shenzhen Qianhai Equity Exchange before the end of 2012 and the development of the innovation bond market.
Up to now, 16 pilot zones have been set up to connect technology and finance in such cities as Tianjin and Chengdu, and the Central Government is seeking further financial in- novation to offer support to scientific and technological enterprises.
6. Yuan Globalization
China took a vital step forward for the internationalization of the renminbi in 2012 by improving the currency’s pricing mechanism. China gave the yuan a wider trading limit, approved direct yen-yuan trading in the Shanghai and Tokyo markets, launched the RQFII pilot program and expanded the investment quota twice in 2012.
On April 16, the People’s Bank of China widened the trading band for the yuan against the U.S. dollar to 1 percent from 0.5 percent for the first time since 2007.
The country brought its yuan one step closer to becoming a global currency by allowing direct trade with the Japanese yen, starting from last summer, making the yen the first major currency besides the U.S. dollar that can be directly traded with the yuan.
China also allowed the backflow of the currency by establishing a new mechanism for the backflow of overseas yuan funds—the renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) program, which was launched at the end of 2011 with an initial quota of 20 billion yuan ($3.18 billion).
On April 3, the RQFII pilot program was expanded to 50 billion yuan ($7.94 billion) in investment quota from the previous 20 billion yuan ($3.18 billion).
On November 13, the RQFII quota was again raised by 200 billion yuan ($32.12 billion).
Besides raising the investment quota, the CSRC will also consider further improving the RQFII system by expanding its investment scope and relaxing investment restrictions so as to allow more Hong Kong financial institutions to apply for the RQFII.
7. Overseas Expansion
The year of 2012 witnessed an array of overseas takeovers by Chinese companies. In January, Sany Heavy Industry Co. and Citic PE Advisors paid 360 million euros($470.46 million) for Putzmeister Holding GmbH, the German concrete-pump maker.
In May, Dalian Wanda Group Corp. Ltd., a private firm based in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province, announced that it would purchase U.S. movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the second largest chain in North America. The deal, the largest overseas cultural investment from a domestic private enterprise, is worth $2.6 billion.
Chinese oil conglomerate China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) Ltd. is preparing to move ahead with the country’s biggest ever overseas acquisition. On December 8, the Canadian government approved CNOOC’s$15.1-billion bid to buy Calgary-based oil and gas producer Nexen Inc.
However, Chinese companies also faced many roadblocks on the path to overseas expansion.
On October 8, the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee issued a report alleging that Huawei and ZTE, both Chinese hi-tech companies, posed a possible threat to U.S. state security, suggesting the American government not use equipment manufactured by the two companies. On October 14, the U.S. Congress launched second-round investigations against the two Chinese firms.
On September 28, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered Ralls Corp., an associated company of China’s Sany Group that has invested in a series of wind power projects in the United States, to divest its interests from a wind farm project, causing more than $20 million losses for the company.
8. Growing Trade Frictions
2012 appeared to be a particularly disquieting year for China’s foreign trade relations.
On January 18, the U.S. Department of Commerce officially announced it would launch an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on wind tower equipment from China. In a preliminary ruling in July, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed provisional anti-dumping duties from 20.85 percent to 72.69 percent on utility-scale wind towers from China. The anti-dumping tariffs are an addition to the countervailing duties of between 13.74 percent to 26 percent the department announced in May.
On November 7, a ruling by the Commerce Department’s International Trade Commission said that U.S. solar-panel makers had been hurt by Chinese competitors that engaged in illegal dumping and received illegal government subsidies. The ruling clears the way for implementing tariffs as high as 36 percent. Following on the heels of the United States, the European Union (EU) launched a similar but more extensive investigation into China’s PV products.
Facing intensified trade protectionism amid a global economic downturn, China fought back.
On November 5, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced that it had filed a complaint to the WTO against photovoltaic subsidies in the EU.
On November 26, the MOFCOM announced the beginning of anti-dumping and countervailing investigations into imports of solar-grade polysilicon, a material used in solar equipment manufacturing, from the United States, South Korea and the EU. The investigation into imports from the EU will be finished before November 1, 2013.
The case follows an anti-dumping probe into imports of solar-grade polysilicon from the United States and South Korea launched on July 20. The statement said the ministry would combine the two cases and make a cumulative evaluation.
9. New Market Policies
A series of new policies took effect in 2012 with the aim of improving the country’s capital markets.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s capital market supervisor, issued guiding opinions on deepening reform of the new stock issuance mechanism on April 28. The top priority is to require listed companies to disclose all relevant information, fully indicating the resolution of the CSRC to solve the problems existing in the A-share market.
On April 29, both Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges publicized drafts to delist under-performing stocks. This will end the widespread belief that Chinese stocks never die.
On April 30 the two bourses and the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corp. Ltd. cut fees on A-share transactions by 25 percent on average. It is estimated that a total of 3 billion yuan ($475.44 million) in transaction fees had been exempted until the end of 2012.
10. Bountiful Grain Harvest
Grain production in China will increase for nine consecutive years with output set to rise in 2012, guaranteeing grain security and supplies of important agricultural products with the further expansion of urban areas.
China is up to its neck in a bumper harvest once again. According to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, China’s 2012 summer grain output reached 129.95 billion kg, up 35.5 billion kg year on year. This is the ninth consecutive year that China has reaped such a bountiful harvest.
China has always emphasized the need for grain security. During the process of urbanization and industrialization, the Central Government set a minimum cultivated land area of 120 million hectares and adopted increasingly strict approval measures of land use for industrial and commercial purposes. In the meantime, benefiting from the progress made in agricultural science and technology, grain output per hectare continues to increase.
The Chinese economy, which suffered a slowdown in the first three quarters, picked up steam thanks to pro-growth measures and policy loosening. Economic indicators in the fourth quarter showed that the country was on a moderate path of recovery.
China’s economy grew 7.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2012, slower than the 7.6-percent growth in the second and the 8.1-percent growth in the first. Thirdquarter GDP growth marked the slowest quarterly growth in more than three years.
China has rolled out an array of measures to buoy the slowing economy, including two cuts to its benchmark interest rate, an easing of reserve requirements by banks and the approval of infrastructure projects worth more than 1 trillion yuan.
China’s consumer price index grew 2 percent year on year in November, up 0.1 percent from a 33-month low of 1.7 percent in October.
November’s purchasinh managers index, a gauge of performance in the manufacturing industry, edged up a notch from its flash reading of 50.4 to 50.5, the highest in 13 months.
China’s value-added industrial output rose 10.1 percent year on year in November, picking up from 9.6 percent in October and 9.2 percent in September.
2. Strategic Emerging Industries in Focus
While some traditional industries underperformed due to sluggish overseas demand and a plunge in investment, China pinned its hopes on strategic emerging industries.
On July 20, the State Council unveiled a sweeping national development plan for strategic emerging industries during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15), in a bid to make them new growth engines of the Chinese economy.
Strategic emerging industries, including information technology, biology, advanced equipment manufacturing, new energy, new materials and new-energy vehicles, accounted for less than 4 percent of the GDP in 2010. The plan sets a target of 8 percent of the GDP by 2015 and 15 percent by 2020.
According to the State Council, spurring the development of emerging industries means greater market reform and freedoms, and a market admission mechanism for private capital will be needed.
3. A Potential to Spend
Chinese citizens’ consumption power, especially over the Internet, was on full display in 2012, illustrating the potential for increased domestic consumption as the country attempts to shift its economy away from a reliance on manufacturing exports. Sales revenue for the retail and catering sectors totaled 800.6 billion yuan ($127.3 billion), up 15 percent year on year, during the 2012 Golden Week, which ran from September 30 to October 7.
A total of 425 million Chinese traveled during the period, up 40.9 percent, resulting in 210.5 billion yuan ($33.47 billion) for the tourism industry.
November 11 is dubbed Singles Day, and it means massive discounts for online shoppers nationwide.
The 2012 Singles Day saw over 213 million Internet users swarm Taobao and Tmall, two websites operated by the Hangzhou-based Alibaba Group, for its 24-hour 50-percent-off carnival. Together the sites raked in a record 19.1 billion yuan ($3.07 billion), up 260 percent year on year. Other major e-commerce players all reaped record-breaking profits, which marked the biggest e-commerce sales day on record.
4. Open to Private Capital
Several ministries issued provisions allowing private capital to invest in monopolized industries in an unprecedented move to spur more competition.
In May, the China Banking Regulatory Commission released new provisions to support private capital entering the banking sector.
In June, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled provisions to encourage the presence and participation of private capital in the telecom industry.
That same month, the Ministry of Commerce released regulations on allowing more private capital to enter the commercial, trade and logistics sectors. The new regulations state that private companies have access to the transportation and retail sales of refined oil products. More government subsidies will be earmarked to solve the financing problems of private small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in commerce, trade and logistics.
In July, the Ministry of Culture released provisions to attract private investment in the cultural sector.
5. Financial Reform
China launched state-led financial reforms to better support the economy.
On March 28, the State Council gave the go ahead to establish a pilot zone for comprehensive financial reform in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China’s private sector powerhouse. The plan requires the city government to set up a financial mechanism to facilitate the locality’s social and economic development. It also outlines 12 tasks for the city to focus on during the reform process, such as encouraging and supporting the participation of private capital in local financial institutions. On April 12, Shenzhen, the origin of China’s economic reform in the late 1970s, followed suit with guidelines for financial reforms. The focus of Shenzhen’s financial reforms will be to serve the development of the real economy, including the introduction of pilot two-way trans-border loans between the mainland and Hong Kong, the establishment of the Shenzhen Qianhai Equity Exchange before the end of 2012 and the development of the innovation bond market.
Up to now, 16 pilot zones have been set up to connect technology and finance in such cities as Tianjin and Chengdu, and the Central Government is seeking further financial in- novation to offer support to scientific and technological enterprises.
6. Yuan Globalization
China took a vital step forward for the internationalization of the renminbi in 2012 by improving the currency’s pricing mechanism. China gave the yuan a wider trading limit, approved direct yen-yuan trading in the Shanghai and Tokyo markets, launched the RQFII pilot program and expanded the investment quota twice in 2012.
On April 16, the People’s Bank of China widened the trading band for the yuan against the U.S. dollar to 1 percent from 0.5 percent for the first time since 2007.
The country brought its yuan one step closer to becoming a global currency by allowing direct trade with the Japanese yen, starting from last summer, making the yen the first major currency besides the U.S. dollar that can be directly traded with the yuan.
China also allowed the backflow of the currency by establishing a new mechanism for the backflow of overseas yuan funds—the renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) program, which was launched at the end of 2011 with an initial quota of 20 billion yuan ($3.18 billion).
On April 3, the RQFII pilot program was expanded to 50 billion yuan ($7.94 billion) in investment quota from the previous 20 billion yuan ($3.18 billion).
On November 13, the RQFII quota was again raised by 200 billion yuan ($32.12 billion).
Besides raising the investment quota, the CSRC will also consider further improving the RQFII system by expanding its investment scope and relaxing investment restrictions so as to allow more Hong Kong financial institutions to apply for the RQFII.
7. Overseas Expansion
The year of 2012 witnessed an array of overseas takeovers by Chinese companies. In January, Sany Heavy Industry Co. and Citic PE Advisors paid 360 million euros($470.46 million) for Putzmeister Holding GmbH, the German concrete-pump maker.
In May, Dalian Wanda Group Corp. Ltd., a private firm based in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning Province, announced that it would purchase U.S. movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the second largest chain in North America. The deal, the largest overseas cultural investment from a domestic private enterprise, is worth $2.6 billion.
Chinese oil conglomerate China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) Ltd. is preparing to move ahead with the country’s biggest ever overseas acquisition. On December 8, the Canadian government approved CNOOC’s$15.1-billion bid to buy Calgary-based oil and gas producer Nexen Inc.
However, Chinese companies also faced many roadblocks on the path to overseas expansion.
On October 8, the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee issued a report alleging that Huawei and ZTE, both Chinese hi-tech companies, posed a possible threat to U.S. state security, suggesting the American government not use equipment manufactured by the two companies. On October 14, the U.S. Congress launched second-round investigations against the two Chinese firms.
On September 28, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered Ralls Corp., an associated company of China’s Sany Group that has invested in a series of wind power projects in the United States, to divest its interests from a wind farm project, causing more than $20 million losses for the company.
8. Growing Trade Frictions
2012 appeared to be a particularly disquieting year for China’s foreign trade relations.
On January 18, the U.S. Department of Commerce officially announced it would launch an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on wind tower equipment from China. In a preliminary ruling in July, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed provisional anti-dumping duties from 20.85 percent to 72.69 percent on utility-scale wind towers from China. The anti-dumping tariffs are an addition to the countervailing duties of between 13.74 percent to 26 percent the department announced in May.
On November 7, a ruling by the Commerce Department’s International Trade Commission said that U.S. solar-panel makers had been hurt by Chinese competitors that engaged in illegal dumping and received illegal government subsidies. The ruling clears the way for implementing tariffs as high as 36 percent. Following on the heels of the United States, the European Union (EU) launched a similar but more extensive investigation into China’s PV products.
Facing intensified trade protectionism amid a global economic downturn, China fought back.
On November 5, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced that it had filed a complaint to the WTO against photovoltaic subsidies in the EU.
On November 26, the MOFCOM announced the beginning of anti-dumping and countervailing investigations into imports of solar-grade polysilicon, a material used in solar equipment manufacturing, from the United States, South Korea and the EU. The investigation into imports from the EU will be finished before November 1, 2013.
The case follows an anti-dumping probe into imports of solar-grade polysilicon from the United States and South Korea launched on July 20. The statement said the ministry would combine the two cases and make a cumulative evaluation.
9. New Market Policies
A series of new policies took effect in 2012 with the aim of improving the country’s capital markets.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s capital market supervisor, issued guiding opinions on deepening reform of the new stock issuance mechanism on April 28. The top priority is to require listed companies to disclose all relevant information, fully indicating the resolution of the CSRC to solve the problems existing in the A-share market.
On April 29, both Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges publicized drafts to delist under-performing stocks. This will end the widespread belief that Chinese stocks never die.
On April 30 the two bourses and the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corp. Ltd. cut fees on A-share transactions by 25 percent on average. It is estimated that a total of 3 billion yuan ($475.44 million) in transaction fees had been exempted until the end of 2012.
10. Bountiful Grain Harvest
Grain production in China will increase for nine consecutive years with output set to rise in 2012, guaranteeing grain security and supplies of important agricultural products with the further expansion of urban areas.
China is up to its neck in a bumper harvest once again. According to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture, China’s 2012 summer grain output reached 129.95 billion kg, up 35.5 billion kg year on year. This is the ninth consecutive year that China has reaped such a bountiful harvest.
China has always emphasized the need for grain security. During the process of urbanization and industrialization, the Central Government set a minimum cultivated land area of 120 million hectares and adopted increasingly strict approval measures of land use for industrial and commercial purposes. In the meantime, benefiting from the progress made in agricultural science and technology, grain output per hectare continues to increase.