China Economy Forum

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9-month low ushers in falling surplus era - People's Daily Online February 15, 2011

<center class="t091105">Increased imports, rising prices behind January's 53.5% decline

China's trade surplus will continue to fall in the coming months after hitting a nine-month low in January amid increased imports in the run-up to the lunar new year holidays and surging commodity prices, economists said.

The surplus fell 53.5 percent to $6.46 billion last month, the General Administration of Customs said on its website on Monday. Exports rose 37.7 percent to $150.73 billion from a year earlier while imports climbed 51 percent to $144.27 billion.

The surplus figures came hours after Tokyo confirmed China had surpassed Japan to become the world's second biggest economy.

Economists said the trade situation is challenging as the uncertain economic outlook for major economies, including the United States, Japan and the European Union, poses difficulties for China's exports.

"The trend shows that China's trade surplus is in decline," said Huo Jianguo, director of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, under the Ministry of Commerce.

China's trade surplus has narrowed in recent months as the government has tried to reduce its reliance on exports by boosting imports and domestic consumption after the world economic slowdown.

"As long as China's imports grow faster than exports, China's trade surplus problem will be solved in the next few years," said Huo.

China's annual surplus figure may drop below $100 billion in the next two to three years, he said.

The lower-than-estimated trade surplus is also expected to ease pressure from the US for greater yuan appreciation as a way of addressing the trade imbalance between the two countries.

nalysts said strong consumer demand before the Spring Festival pushed up imports.

"We believe the New Year contributed to increasing imports," said Chang Jian, an analyst from Barclays Capital.

The value of China's foreign trade in January rose 43.9 percent year-on-year to $295.01 billion, the customs said on Monday. Imports and exports rose as businesses accelerated shipments in advance of the two-week holiday period, it said.

Higher commodity prices have also played a big role in boosting the cost of China's imports, as prices for raw materials such as iron ore and copper are at, or close to, record highs.

According to figures from the customs, the price of iron ore, one of China's major imports, surged 66.1 percent to $151.4 per ton last month. The price of imported soya also increased 20.4 percent to $558.1 per ton.

"We expect world commodity prices to remain high and that will push up the cost of China's imports in the coming months," said Lu Zhiming, an analyst from the Bank of Communications.

He estimated China's trade surplus this year will drop to $150 billion, from $183.1 billion last year.

The value of trade between China and the EU, the country's largest trading partner, increased 30.5 percent year-on-year to $45.97 billion in January, according to customs figures, while the value of Sino-US trade increased 39.2 percent year-on-year to $36.87 billion.

China emerged as the leading market for US agricultural exports, according to statistics released by the US Department of Agriculture on Feb 11. But figures from the US Department of Commerce on the same day also showed that the deficit with China rose 20.4 percent last year.

China Daily

 

[Brotherhood]

China's first hedge fund may debut in March - People's Daily Online February 15, 2011

The asset management arm of Shanghai-based Guotai Junan Securities Co. will launch a financial product in early March that may become China's first hedge fund, the aim of which is to hedge systematic risks on the A-share market through short-selling the country's stock index futures.

Guotai Junan calls it a "specialized financial product" instead of a "hedge fund." Due to various restricting factors, including regulatory rules, Chinese securities brokers and fund managers currently have no publicly-released hedge funds despite small-scale experimental trials.

The establishment of Guotai Junan's "specialized financial product" may open the door for the development of China's hedge funds and spur the progress of the whole funds industry, experts said.

The hedge fund plans to raise 300 million yuan, or 45 million U.S. dollars, initially, and the company aims to launch identical funds later to raise up to 5 billion yuan, its general manager Zhang Biao said.

Zhang said the company's quantitative investment team has been operating an account that adopts a "market neutral strategy" and realized 15 percent of annualized return among wide fluctuations of the A-share market.

Last April, China Financial Futures Exchange officially launched the Shanghai Shenzhen 300 Stock Index Futures, making the emergence of hedge funds possible in China. Domestic institutional investors, including Yifangda Funds Management Company, have started hedge funds trials in their proprietary trading and separate account financing businesses.

Zhang noted that the hedge fund would be only a trial of the market neutral strategy and that several products would follow up during 2011.

By People's Daily Online

 

[&#20013;&#22269;&#19975;&#23681;-ProsperThroughCo-]

We need to be part of the great Chinese march | News

We need to be part of the great Chinese march

Jim O'Neill
15 Feb 2011
Yesterday's estimate for Japan's GDP growth in the final quarter of 2010, or rather the lack of growth, was not a surprise. More interesting was that it confirmed China's status as the number two global economy.

It wasn't even close: China's GDP stands at around $5.9 trillion, Japan at about $5.4 trillion. The speed of China's ascent relative to Japan is quite remarkable even by my own optimistic standards.

When back in 2001 I first looked at China's remarkable potential at the core of the broader BRIC group - Brazil, Russia, India and China - it wasn't even on my radar that China would overtake Japan as soon as 2010. I was ambitious enough to suggest China would surpass Germany. In 2003, when my team first looked at the world's 2050 potential, we expected China to overtake Japan by 2015. So it has happened five years early.

There is nothing quite like this China phenomenon in modern history. Since 2001, China's economy has grown by $4.3 trillion, in the process effectively creating more than another two of itself than existed in 2001. That growth is equivalent to creating more than two new United Kingdoms.

As the base size of China gets bigger, so does its impact. If China succeeds in growing by the forecasting consensus view of around nine per cent this year, with inflation at around four to five per cent and its currency rising a bit, the end of last year's $5.9 trillion will be close to $7 trillion by the end of this year. In other words, China will create the economic equivalent of another Korea in one year - or one-and-a-half UKs.

Contrary to many perceptions, China is not achieving this growth at everyone else's expense. That is an out-of-date story. Last year China's imports totalled close to $1.4 trillion, and they increased by a massive $400 billion in just that year. Maintained at this pace, within another five years, China's imports will be bigger than those of the US.

Quite simply, China is the single biggest story for us all - and I've been impressed by how the UK Government is grasping it, especially the need to export. This could be our get-out-of-jail-free card. Providing support and encouraging all our manufacturing and, perhaps even more importantly, our service businesses to penetrate further into China is critical.

In this regard, it is imperative that any controls on immigration don't clash with the importance of this goal (which includes our educational exports too) for China and the other BRICs.

It has become quite fashionable - again - to worry about China being some sort of bubble. I'm not sure why this view is so popular but it probably reflects a core belief that a non-democratic country cannot guide its economy to permanent success. Ultimately that might turn out to be true but the same accusations were made a decade ago - and look what has happened since.

The Chinese authorities will soon confirm their next five-year plan and its details. It is likely to embrace a further push towards their consumers and to take the economy away from being driven by exports. We should watch these developments at least as closely as our domestic budget: they are likely to be more important.

Jim O'Neill is chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management

Nation has 'plentiful reserves' of wheat

Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily | 2011-2-16 | NEWSPAPER EDITION
The story appears on Page A3
Feb 16, 2011

CHINA has enough wheat reserves to weather a crippling drought, officials said yesterday as they sought to allay concerns that a poor harvest will further push up global food prices.

China is the world's largest wheat-growing nation, but its wheat belt has had virtually no rain since late October.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters at a regular news conference that China has plentiful reserves following seven years of bumper harvests and that recent drought conditions in the wheat belt "will not affect international food prices."

Ma said the government was taking active measures to minimize the drought's impact.

The government said last week it would spend US$1 billion to alleviate the drought, which as of Monday had affected 6.75 million hectares of winter wheat in the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi and Gansu and left nearly 3 million people short of drinking water.

The National Meteorological Center said yesterday that no rain or snow was forecast in most drought-hit regions of north China over the next three days.

Shanghai agriculture analyst Lief Chiang of Rabobank said that numerous other factors were behind the current increase in wheat prices, including flooding in Australia, drought in Russia and an early frost in Canada.

Not only do hundreds of millions of Chinese rely on farming to make a living, but good harvests are crucial to keeping meat, grains and vegetables affordable for the vast majority of Chinese who spend one-third or more of their income on food.

However, other experts said China's wheat crops are currently dormant and rain or snow in the next month or two could still allow for good harvests.

Nation has 'plentiful reserves' of wheat -- Shanghai Daily | ???? -- English Window to China New

 

[Brotherhood]

Manufacturing belts in labour shortage - People's Daily Online February 16, 2011

Recruiters hold up job advertisements for migrant labour at a job market in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011. China's booming coastal provinces are facing a labour shortage after the Lunar New Year holidays as the seemingly endless flow of migrant workers dries up. More and more workers in the traditional manufacturing belts in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas are staying back in their home villages in the countryside due to rapid urbanisation and economic development in China's interior. [Photo/Agencies]

Recruiters hold up job advertisements for migrant labour at a job market in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011.[Photo/Agencies]

A worker works while surrounded by unmanned sewing machines at the production line of a bag factory in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011.China's booming coastal provinces are facing a labour shortage after the Lunar New Year holidays as the seemingly endless flow of migrant workers dries up. More and more workers in the traditional manufacturing belts in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas are staying back in their home villages in the countryside due to rapid urbanisation and economic development in China's interior. [Photo/Agencies]

A migrant worker looks at a job advertisement for a swimwear factory at a job market in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Recruiters hold up job advertisements for migrant labour at a job market in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011

Job advertisements are seen at a job market in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

 

[Brotherhood]

China reduces US debt holdings in December - People's Daily Online February 16, 2011

China, the biggest buyer of US government debts, reduced its holdings in December for the second straight month, the Treasury Department said yesterday.

China's holdings of Treasury debt dropped 0.4 percent to $892 billion. The declines follow four months of increases, the Associated Press quoted the department data as saying.

China's ownership of US government debt, now slightly below the $895 billion it held a year ago, is a small-step tactical restructuring of its forex reserve investment portfolio. The country has been buying sovereign bonds of a wider variety of governments, including more European countries, to diversify its holding portfolio, Chinese analysts said.

Overall, foreign holdings of US Treasury securities rose 0.6 percent $4.37 trillion. Britain and Japan ramped up their purchases of US government debt in December, the AP report said. Japan, the second-largest buyer of US government debts, boosted its holdings 0.7 percent to $883.6 billion, while, Britain, the third-largest, increased its holdings 5.8 percent to $541.3 billion.

The U.S. government is selling huge amounts of debt to finance record-high deficits. This year's deficit is forecast to reach $1.6 trillion, the highest ever.

Overseas demand for Treasury bonds helps lower the interest rate the U.S. government pays on its debt. If the United States had to finance its debt through U.S. investors alone, the government would have to pay higher rates, the report said.

By People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

ABAC: Chinese economy expects strong growth - People's Daily Online

According to an economic outlook report from an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) business advisory body, China's economy is expected to remain strong in 2011, but inflationary pressures are likely to rise further due to rising food prices.

According to the report, Chinese authorities are looking to ensure that the inflationary pressures do not "spill over" into price pressures in other areas of the economy or into inflationary expectations, which may lead to further cuts in lending quotas and more hikes in reserve requirements and interest rates.

John Denton, the chair of the Finance and Economics Working Group of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), presented the report.

The organization, which opened its first meeting this year in China's southern city of Guangzhou, has been assigned to prepare topics for discussion with APEC leaders when they convene in Hawaii later this year.

China's consumer price index (CPI), which is a main gauge of inflation, rose 4.9 percent year on year in January. The increase was 0.3 percentage point higher than the December figure from last year. However, the figure is 5.1 percent lower than in November, which was a 28-month high.

China's robust growth in household spending, manufacturing investment and exports will offset a slowdown in property-related and urban fixed-asset investments. The decline was partly induced by government measures designed to cool "overheated" real estate markets, said the report.

Due to the Chinese government's mandate for increasing minimum wages and the upward pressure on other wages and salaries due to emerging labor shortages, the report predicted continuous growth in household spending from rapid income gains in coastal provinces and other areas.

Source: Xinhua

 

[Brotherhood]

China's foreign trade up 44 percent in January - People's Daily Online February 16, 2011

China's imports and exports in January 2011 amounted to 295 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 44 percent year on year, according to news from the website of the Ministry of Commerce.

ASEAN is China's third largest trading partner, and bilateral trade with the bloc of Southeast Asian nations totaled 28.9 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 34 percent compared to the same period of last year.

In January, bilateral trade between China and Europe reached 46 billion U.S. dollars, growing 30 percent, and bilateral trade between China and the United States amounted to 36.9 billion U.S. dollars, increasing by 39 percent.

By Liang Jun, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

Chongqing to launch 10 million square meters of public housing - People's Daily Online February 16, 2011

Starting from Feb. 12, 2011, Chongqing began to receive low-rent public housing applications. It will open 10 million square meters of public housing for applications this year, which is nearly half of the total area of commercial housing sold in Chongqing main city in 2010.

The first batch of low-rent public housing, with an area of about 4 million square meters (about 67,000 sets), will be available on March 2 and the second batch in October 2011. After that, citizens who have handled relevant procedures can gradually move into the homes.

Chongqing started construction on 13 million square meters of public rental housing last year, will begin construction on 13.5 million square meters this year and plans to construct 13.5 million square meters next year. The combined 40 million square meters of public rental housing will solve housing problems for about 2 million people.

By Liang Jun, People's Daily Online

 

[Brotherhood]

Shanghai offshore investment hits 2.42 bln USD in 2010 - People's Daily Online February 16, 2011

Shanghai-based Chinese companies made a combined investment of 2.42 billion U.S. dollars abroad in 2010, up 57 percent from the previous year, helping the metropolis remain a primary base for Chinese offshore investment during the past five years.

The latest data from the city's commerce bureau show that about 10 percent of last year's 301 offshore investment projects were valued at more than 10 million U.S. dollars. These multi-million-dollar projects include the stake acquisition of Belgium-based Zeebrugge APM Terminals by Shanghai International Port Group Co, China's largest port operator.

Shanghai's offshore investment stood at only 530 million U.S. dollars in 2006. It surged in the following four years. The city's total offshore investment from 2006 to 2010 reached 5.85 billion U.S. dollars.

Source:Xinhua

 

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Why the Chinese are not inspired by Egypt

By David Pilling
Published: February 16 2011 20:37 | Last updated: February 16 2011 20:37
“Today we are all Egyptians,” Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist, tweeted as, half a world away, Hosni Mubarak’s power structure crumbled to dust. “It took only 18 days for the collapse of a military regime which was in power for 30 years,” he wrote. China’s Communist party, he joked, had been in power for twice as long and might take that little bit longer to topple.

The sight of hundreds of thousands of people pouring into Cairo’s Tahrir Square has rekindled memories of an ill-fated, student-led occupation of another city square: Tiananmen in 1989. Lurking beneath that comparison has been an implied thought. If only Chinese people were fully aware of what their Egyptian brethren had achieved, they might be tempted to have another go.

“Some western analysts have naively bought into the notion that if you just take care of growth, people will be willing to suspend all manner of other demands,” writes Howard French, a journalist with long China experience, in The Atlantic, a US magazine. Egypt, he says, gives the lie to this presumption. “A society in its entirety, from the lowliest workers to the privileged professional class, wants a cluster of goods: economic growth, transparency, accountability, and a say in who governs it.”

That Egypt raises some awkward questions for Beijing is undeniable. That is why, particularly in the early stages of the uprising, its censors worked overtime to put a gloss on events. Official dispatches focused on the evacuation of Chinese citizens from a chaotic and dangerous Cairo, without bothering to analyse overly what had provoked such a mass disturbance.

Yet it would be wrong to conclude that Beijing lives in fear of an Egypt-inspired eruption at home. Official coverage of the past few days of the revolution was not as restricted as some western reports made out. The China Daily, the official English language newspaper, might not be entirely representative of the Chinese language media, but its front page story included a description of the “jubilation” felt by Egyptian crowds. On Sina and other mainstream websites, there was ample discussion of how food inflation – again a problem in China – was a catalyst for the uprisings in both Tahrir and Tiananmen Square.

Caixin, a business magazine founded by Hu Shuli, a standard-bearer of liberal journalism, went much further with an editorial that challenged the prevailing assumption – encouraged by the authorities – that democracies are prone to disorder. “It is autocracy that creates chaos, while democracy breeds peace,” it said. “Supporting an autocracy is in reality trading short-term interests for long-term costs.”

There are echoes of Egypt in China to be sure. But they are faint. To watch Tahrir Square from Tiananmen Square this week was to be conscious that the differences outweigh the similarities.

A population, as Mr French suggests, cannot be bought off with airports, roads and double-digit growth alone. But these things help. Despite the gross iniquities and daily injustices, China is buzzing with optimism. Most people – up to and including a 70-year-old farmer I met this week in the poor central province of Henan, turfed off his land to make way for an industrial park – say China is progressing and that life is getting better.

“We looked at what was going on in Egypt and thought: ‘What a mess’,” says Pan Xiaoli, a western-educated television presenter for the Shanghai Media Group, who says the principal concerns&#8201;for the&#8201;Chinese are public order, job opportunities and the chance to improve their lives.

Just as potently, there is pride in China’s growing international clout. Contrast that with Egypt, where 30 years of misrule have produced a stagnant economy and an atmosphere of national drift.

Teng Biao, a human rights activist and friend of Liu Xiaobo, the jailed winner of this year’s Nobel peace prize, says the lessons of Egypt are dulled partly by censorship and fear. But apathy and growing prosperity play their part. “Ordinary people do not really care what happens in other countries,” he says. “A lot of people are brainwashed and are not so interested in political topics.”

As Mr Teng points out, there are 80,000-90,000 “mass protests” each year. That hardly suggests an entirely contented and acquiescent people. But protesters are unlikely to rally around the idea of democracy itself and more likely to take on concrete issues related to land rights, corruption, mistrials, wages and the environment. That is partly because there is more leeway – sometimes – to protest about such matters but also because, to many, they seem more pressing.

Pan Wei, a professor of international studies at Peking University, argues that Washington has more to fear than Beijing from the Egyptian revolution. The west’s instincts are to cheer another victory for democracy, he says. But the truth is the US has lost its staunchest Arabic ally. That means Washington, desperately trying to extricate itself from a quagmire in Afghanistan and Iraq, may get sucked back into the quicksand of an uncertain Middle East. And that, implies Professor Pan, would suit Beijing just fine.

david.pilling@ft.com

 

[Brotherhood]

Hong Kong airport named best in world for fifth year - People's Daily Online
February 17, 2011

Airports Council International named Hong Kong International Airport on Wednesday the world’s No.1 among airports serving more than 40 million passengers annually.

2010 was the fifth consecutive year that the Hong Kong airport has received this honor. In the annual Airport Service Quality survey, conducted by Skytrax, a U.K.-based consultancy firm, it was rated as excellent or very good by 99 percent of the survey respondents, achieving a record high of 4.78 out of 5.00.

Passengers favor the Hong Kong airport mainly due to its availability and cleanliness of the lavatories, the comfortableness of the waiting areas, the ambience, the security and the customs inspection.

Participants in this survey, who came from 140 airports, were asked to rate airports on a variety of measures, such as general ambience, check-in efficiency, staff courtesy, cleanliness and comfortableness of the waiting rooms.

Currently a third runway is scheduled to be constructed as the current two runways are now near capacity. The airport was initially planned in 1992 to serve 87 million passengers and 9 million tons of cargo.

"Hong Kong outperforms its population size on the world stage because of its connectivity. That drives the economy and creates jobs. To protect the airport's competitiveness, sufficient capacity is needed to support growth," said Giovanni Bisignani, director-general and CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in an address to the Aerospace Forum Asia in Hong Kong.

He also said: "The 900-million-[U.S.-dollar] midfield terminal project will provide the passenger handling capability. I am here to make a strong plea to move forward with a third runway."

By Li Yancheng, People's Daily Online

 

[CardSharp]

Manufacturing belts in labour shortage - People's Daily Online February 16, 2011

Recruiters hold up job advertisements for migrant labour at a job market in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, February 15, 2011

Remember the days after state factory layoff, when Chinese workers would wait for months on the street corners holding similar signs. How the times have changed....

 

[Brotherhood]

China's FDI up 23.4% in January - People's Daily Online February 17, 2011

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose by 23.4 percent year on year in January to 10.03 billion U.S. dollars, said Yao Jian, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, Thursday.

A total of 2,243 new foreign-invested enterprises were approved in January, an increase of 20.2 percent year on year, Yao said.

The services sector received 4.69 billion U.S. dollars of FDI, up 31.8 percent from January last year. While FDI inflows in the manufacturing sector rose 18.9 percent to 4.7 billion U.S. dollars.

Yao said the growth of FDI into west China was higher than the national average. The western region attracted 510 million U.S. dollars of FDI in January, a year-on-year increase of 81.1 percent.

Investment in the eastern region grew 23 percent year on year to 8.98 billion U.S. dollars, while investment in the central region fell 2 percent year on year to 540 million U.S. dollars.

Source:Xinhua

 

[Brotherhood]

Full steam ahead for shipbuilders' plans to retain market position - People's Daily Online February 17, 2011

Production capacity forecast of China Shipbuilding industry in 2005-2012 (Schematic)

China plans to maintain its current global market share of 40 percent in the shipbuilding industry during the next five years, further consolidating its dominant position in the field, said Zhang Guangqin, head of the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry.

"To keep such a market share is by no means easy. China still lags behind South Korea and Japan in terms of technologies and production capability of high value-added vessels," Zhang said in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

"Once the world market is affected by oversupply, Chinese shipbuilders will be challenged by a higher technology threshold and new shipbuilding standards imposed by the international community," he added.

According to industry estimates for the near future, the production capacity of the global shipbuilding industry may expand by 200 million deadweight tons every year, but demand will remain at 156 million deadweight tons, with nearly a quarter oversupplied.

A deadweight ton comprises the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provisions, passengers, and crew.

In the meantime, industry analysts have predicted the Chinese shipbuilding industry will be seriously challenged by overcapacity from this year onwards.

"Now that we have enough production capacity, it's high time that we improved our technological strength and management skills. More investment will be encouraged to flow into the research and development sector," Zhang said.

According to Zhang, shipbuilders in China should upgrade their vessels to meet the growing demand of vessels with high value-added while fostering their own technologies in building vessels for special use, such as liquid gas carriers, and multi-purpose vessels. Chinese shipyards have long had a reputation for being low-priced and fast, but not sophisticated or advanced. As global demand is gradually picking up in the wake of the global financial depression, China displaced South Korea as the top global shipbuilder in 2010.

That year, the country's completed shipbuilding orders jumped by 54.6 percent year-on-year to a record high of 65.6 million deadweight tons, the volume of new ship orders rose almost three times year-on-year to 72.35 million deadweight tons, and the volume of orders in hand grew by 4.1 percent year-on-year to 195.9 million deadweight tons, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In the meantime, statistics from Clarkson, the world's largest shipping research institute, show that China took an average of 45 percent - the largest - of the global volume in the categories outlined above in 2010, followed by South Korea and Japan.

"Affected by the oversupply, international competition is becoming fiercer. Shipbuilders today across the world are participating in green economy, trying to cut their energy consumption through advanced technologies," Zhang added.

In 2010, the International Maritime Organization discussed and passed a slew of amendments which are consistent with developing environmentally friendly technologies, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions and new noise-proofing standards.

"China should also take part in making new rules and standards by developing our own technologies, or our vessels will become obsolete and end up being abandoned by the market," Zhang said.

He also said that besides oversupply, appreciation of the yuan and rising costs of labor and raw materials have narrowed companies' profit margins. Ultimately, orders will only come to famous large companies, resulting in an industrial consolidation.

In 2010, China's top 20 shipbuilders accounted for 67.6 percent of the country's overall volume of completed ships, according to a report released by the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry.

Oversupply in the shipbuilding industry became a global concern, forcing giants in the field to withdraw from the industry.

China Daily

 

[cross1993]

Remember the days after state factory layoff, when Chinese workers would wait for months on the street corners holding similar signs. How the times have changed....

That is not good news.
We have solved the employment problem, but our population advantages was consumes over.