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Economics & Trade

Money supply, savings show sharp rise

China’s broad money supply, M2, was up 14.4 per cent year-on-year at the end of March, accelerating from a rise of 13 per cent at the end of February, said the People’s Bank of China. Growth in the narrow M1 money supply slowed from 10.9 per cent to  10.1 per cent, while M0, or […]

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Economics & Trade

Continued decline in industrial prices

The ex-factory prices of industrial products fell 4.0 per cent year-on-year in March, said the National Bureau of Statistics. Prices during the first quarter of the year were down 4.1 per cent. They are regarded as an indicator of future consumer price trends. Ex-factory prices have been falling since the middle of last year as […]

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Economics & Trade

Upturn in industrial output Industrial output

rose by 10.9 per cent yearon- year in the first quarter of 2002, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The increase was an improvement on the 8.7 per cent annual growth rate reported for December 2001. Output of heavy industry rose by 10.9 per cent over the period, while that of light industry rose […]

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Economics & Trade

Austere lending environment

More recent editions of the almanac allow for comparisons that help gauge the success of Zhu’s efforts, and the results are not encouraging. Aggregate lending figures for end-1999 do show one striking change over the previous six years: the total loan-to-deposit ratio of the big four banks has fallen sharply, from 1.14 times to 0.83 […]

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Economics & Trade

Official warns of rising unemployment

The official number of urban unemployed is likely to climb to more than 20m in the next four years, said Wang Dongjin, vice minister of labour and social security. He predicted that 12m-13m new workers would enter the labour market annually in coming years, in addition to 5m workers laid off by stateowned enterprises and […]