State of the Chinese economy

This video was filmed as part of the China-Europe-US Economists Symposium held in Beijing on May 17. Guntram Wolff, Director at Bruegel, and Dr. Xu Qiyuan - from the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences and Visiting Fellow at Bruegel - discuss the Chinese macroeconomics, from consumption and investment to the rebalancing of the economy.

Even though experts have pointed to a slowdown, Dr Qiyuan is not pessimistic regarding the Chinese economy. "The Bureau of Statistics in China published very weak data for the country's macroeconomy," he explains. However, when looking at the data more carefully, Xu argues, one discovers it is not as bad as it may seem. 

"Consumption, for example, is not so weak," Xu notes. "The bureau did not include a big part of the retail data in the statistics. The E-commerce sector, for example, is experiencing a high growth rate."

However, the data for exports shows a negative growth rate of 3.6% for the first quarter. For April, it was near 0%. "Nevertheless, since the beginning of last year, a big gap has developed between interests rates for the renminbi in the onshore and offshore markets," Xu assures.