The big news overnight was the announcement of the latest economic growth rate for China.
For 25 years China has been the fastest-growing, most consistent large economy in the world. Put a line under their GDP chart, and you'll see that the Chinese economy has grown at 6%, each and every year. That was until the lock-down year of 2020. When, like the rest of the world, the Chinese economy went into a sharp, but presumed short year of contraction.
Now all of that was supposed to be behind us. Major economies worldwide are now recovering. And China, which after all is the manufacturing hub of the world should be recovering also.
But today's report on the Chinese Economy shows that China's economy grew at less than 5% for the past 12 months. But it's worse than that, much worse. For the last three month's the Chinese economy grew at only 2/10th%. Project that number forward and you have a Chinese economy that's really not growing at all. That is basically stagnant.
In other words, the Chinese economic recovery appears to be over.
And what's more, Chinese Industrial production is particularly weak, having come in at slightly over a 3% growth rate.
This set's up something that we haven't seen since the 1980's the chance that American industrial production may exceed Chinese for the first time in 40 years. Now the US Industrial Production number will be released at 9:15 Eastern time. And if Wall Street is correct the US should come in at a 5.7% increase in industrial production. Exceeding the Chinese by more than 2 1/2%.
A remarkable divergence, and showing just how far off the mark, the Chinese really are currently.
No matter how the Chinese try to spin these numbers, these results are stunning. And it shows a precipitous drop in Chinese Economic Growth. The ramifications of which will be felt for quite some time.
