Shanghai 1H growth lags country

Shanghai may be gearing up for the 2010 Expo, but its economy is not playing along. While China as a whole is set to reach something close to Beijing’s 8% annual GDP growth target – thanks to stimulus programs that have been praised by the IMF – the city’s performance has been decidedly less robust. Shanghai’s economy posted its slowest first-half growth in 17 years this year, expanding only 5.6%. The culprit, naturally, is weak export demand. A slowing economy hasn’t been enough to deter investors, however. The Shanghai Composite Index closed yesterday at 3,296.62 points, its highest level since June 2008, and meaning the index has now risen more than 80% this year. The market’s rise has naturally been attracting ever more investors: Last week alone, investors opened 484,799 new trading accounts. That may be good news for companies pursuing initial public offerings, the latest of which is Chery Automobile. The company hopes to re-launch its IPO plans after putting them on hold last March due to market weakness. No longer on hold, apparently, are plans for computer makers to start shipping their computers with "Green Dam" web-filtering software included. No doubt the software will come in handy in helping search engines to block searches related to a certain corruption investigation involving a company linked to the Chinese president’s son.