CHINA - THE MARKET JUST STEAMS AHEAD

Most people are sucked into the hype associated with 10% + GDP growth and think this is unbelievable and the way to go. So many countries have made the mistake in the past and it is just amazing to watch so many people fall for the same mistake again.

The old saying, "history repeats itself" is once again in play.

The Chinese economy is growing in the 10-12% range and perhaps more, as much activity probably goes unreported. There is nothing wrong with strong growth, but there is legitimate concern about growth that is not actually market-based. The Chinese government is concerned about too much capacity in too many industries, as well as real estate speculation.

Every local government has had access to cheap money. So, they build more factories with little view to markets and profits. As Simon Hunt notes from a recent rip to China:

"In our travels around Shandong Province we came across a prime example. A local government company decided in 2000 to construct a power station and a copper tube plant. We cannot comment on the feasibility of the power plant, but it was quite clear from our visit that the ACR tube plant with a capacity of 60kt/a will never make a decent return on capital, let alone will lenders ever get to see their money back.

"Not content with one white elephant, the company is building a sheet/strip plant with a capacity of 100kt/a and a capex of US$250 million, using all imported equipment, just to add to the circa 1.5MT/a of new capacity being built in China. Our discussions also showed that they had not undertaken a rigorous market study prior to starting to construct. Power stations, tube and sheet/strip mills have all been fashionable projects, and China is a land of fashion followers."

How many such projects are there? The central government has laid down rules designed to make it more difficult to build projects which are not economically rational. But the local bureaucrats have ignored the rules. Beijing is starting to crack down. Some 100,000 projects, initiated since the beginning of the year, are under investigation. Forty percent of these violate at least one rule, and 14% are actually illegal.

Conveniently for the central government, a large number of local bureaucrats are due to be replaced (through retirement or elections). Look for their replacements to be more loyal to the central government.

Beijing is not trying to stop real infrastructure growth. The concern is excess capacity, which leads to deflationary pressure. Directing all this from a central government is a mind-boggling task, and one about which I must admit I harbor doubts as to how it will actually work. But so far...?

The government has stated that its objective is to bring down the growth of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the plus 30% in the first half of the year to 20% by year-end. Both monetary and administrative measures will continue to be taken until this goal is in reach. That is a big drop and is already being seen in construction activity, according to a report just issued by Jonathan Anderson of UBS.

How? Among other things, the government has taken back the ability of local bureaucrats to approve land sales. If you can't buy the land, you can't build the factory. Adherence to the rules is being aggressively pushed, with strong messages coming from the very top leadership. Plus, in the past few weeks we have seen some very difficult new positions. Foreign businesses cannot sell land and repatriate their capital. And limits have been placed on how much (or even if) foreign firms can invest in businesses in certain sectors, some of which seem to clearly violate WTO rules, at least from this side of the Pacific.

That being said, the Chinese government has affirmed they will meet their WTO obligations to open up their banking sector to foreign firms, although the rules they are adopting will make it expensive to do so.

All this gives rise to even more protectionist rhetoric from both the left of the Democratic and the right wing of the Republican parties. They demand that China revalue the Renminbi by 30% or so immediately. Such verbal political garbage may play well to the home crowd, but it makes no economic sense. Exactly why do these politicians want Americans to pay 30% more for their Chinese imports? Such a move would cause a deep and severe recession in the US, not to mention China. Let's see if we can really destabilize the world. Idiocy.

The Chinese will continue to do what they have done for years, and that is to act in their own best interests, just as every other nation does. And it is in everyone's interest that they slowly move to a free-floating currency, which it evidently seems they are doing. As strong as the Chinese economy is, it is more fragile than it appears. A shock of a quick 30% adjustment in currency valuations would precipitate a deep recession in China. That is something the world does not need.

It will truly be a miracle if the Chinese can avoid a recession over the next few years, as all economies eventually succumb to the normal business cycle. But unless the government makes a large blunder, it will be just like the next recession in the US. It will pass and then the growth will resume. The Chinese government is managing a very difficult transition, from a centralized socialist economy to a market-driven economy. For all the problems, from this seat I think they are doing better than any of us could imagine 10 years ago. Yes, they have a long way to go, but they have come a long way. If they can continue down the path they are on, it will accrue not only to their benefit, but to the world's advantage.