Is China’s economy on the brink of a new boom? Digging for answers in industrial numbers
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2110525/chinas-economy-brink-new-boom-digging-answers-industrial-numbers 10 September, 2017
...A spike in sales of construction equipment, along with improved profitability at industrial enterprises and a hefty surge in the prices of raw materials such as coal and steel, is fuelling the debate about whether China has entered a new boom cycle.
Ren Zeping, chief economist at Beijing-based Founder Securities and a former researcher for China’s cabinet, is a leading advocate of the “new cycle theory”.
In an article published last week on his social media account, Ren said China was at the start of a new boom cycle because its industrial oversupply problem had largely been resolved after years of deflation and capacity reduction.
The latest positive indicator came from the excavating machinery branch of the China Construction Machinery Association, which announced that sales of excavators in China in the first eight months of the year rose by a massive 111.1 per cent year on year to 85,766.
Such an expansion rate is unprecedented, surpassing even the 78 per cent growth recorded for the sector between 2009 and 2010 under a huge drive led by then premier Wen Jiabao to get the country building again. In that period, however, volume sales were significantly higher at 165,804 units.
In the past year, the share prices of steelmakers, coal miners and cement plants in Shanghai and Shenzhen have steadily outperformed the benchmark indexes....
