Category: Economics & Trade

It is the trade imbalances that are of most immediate importance because they greatly affect the day-to-day internal politics of trading partners.

China announced a slew of new financial rules recently. Among them, foreign investors will be allowed to buy tradeable A-shares in China’s publicly listed firms as part of Beijing’s ongoing effort to dissolve non-tradeable state shares, according to media reports. A-shares are now closed to foreigner investors, but their supply is poised to increase as China is now converting its non-tradeable state shares into regular tradeable A-shares. Foreign investors that take strategic stakes through A-shares will be subject to specified "lock-up" periods during which they must continue to hold the shares before being allowed to sell them.

China reported its first human cases of bird flu on November 16, including at least one fatality.

Talk of a slowdown in China’s economy appeared far-fetched last month when the State Information Center raised its 2005 growth forecast to 9.4%, down only about 1% on last year’s growth rate. This came after figures for the July-September period showed that national out-put had risen by more than 9% for the ninth successive quarter.

A study of gradualism reveals a lot about where China is going and how it might get there.