China’s housing slump deepened last month and triggered new calls for the government to pump cash and credit into the economy, while the central bank yesterday kept a key lending rate unchanged.
Among a slew of data, including industrial production and retail sales, published yesterday, analysts latched onto the bad news from the property market, which has been the biggest drag on China’s economic growth.
Property investments fell 10 percent year-on-year and home sales sank 30.5 percent, while home prices in major, so-called Tier 1 cities like Beijing and Shanghai, fell 3.2 percent, National Bureau of Statistics data showed.
Photo: AFP
“The most disappointing in May’s data is probably that property sales barely saw any improvements even after so many supportive measures,” BNP Paribas SA chief China economist Jacqueline Rong (榮靜) said.
Chinese authorities need to find ways to lower the rates on existing mortgages, closing the gap with the cost of new ones, she said.
The People’s Bank of China kept a key interest rate unchanged for the 10th straight month.
Economists say the bank’s room to cut rates is constrained by the need to prop up the yuan, which faces downward pressure as the US Federal Reserve reinforces its high-for-longer message.
Late last month, China unveiled a broad rescue package to prop up housing sales as a credit crisis was engulfing some of the nation’s biggest real-estate developers.
It relaxed mortgage rules and encouraged local governments to buy unsold homes. Many investors and analysts have cautioned that the financial incentives are not big enough and trial programs in several cities have shown progress can be slow.
Subdued demand at home and the deteriorating foreign trade environment are weighing on business confidence, discouraging companies from investing and driving some to move production overseas. Credit growth has been lackluster and the M1 money supply gauge contracted last month at the fastest rate in data going back to 1996.
“We still need to see new stimulus coming in,” Bank of America Greater China chief economist Helen Qiao (喬虹) said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
“Otherwise the growth momentum could very much weaken,” she added.
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
The battle for artificial intelligence supremacy hinges on microchips, but the semiconductor sector that produces them has a dirty secret: It is a major source of chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems. Global chip sales surged more than 19 percent to about US$628 billion last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, which forecasts double-digit growth again this year. That is adding urgency to reducing the effects of “forever chemicals” — which are also used to make firefighting foam, nonstick pans, raincoats and other everyday items — as are regulators in the US and Europe who are beginning to
RSS