China Real Time Report presents a range of perspectives on the state of the Chinese economy, and boldly eschews scalebare dragon imagery:
How healthy – or otherwise – is China’s economy? Like the proverbial blind men grasping an elephant, the answer likely depends on where you’re standing ….
“The world is not coming to an end in China,” said Wu Yibing, president of Citic Private Equity Funds Management Co., one of China’s biggest local funds. According to Mr. Wu, the weighted average revenue for companies that Citic PE’s U.S. dollar fund has invested in was up 70% in the first half of the year from a year earlier. Even as the world was losing faith in China, profit for those companies was up 90% over the same period, he said ….
Property mogul Zhang Xin saw things differently – and claimed Mr. Wu’s numbers would likely tell a different story in the three months since June.
“In my 16 years as a developer this [has been] one of the most difficult times,” said Ms. Zhang, chief executive of Soho China, singing a not unfamiliar tune.
