Strong Aug data expected as solid growth continues

Economy likely to remain healthy

After surprising pretty much everyone with solid growth in the first half, China’s economy has continued to motor along nicely with a flurry of data for August expected to show momentum will largely hold up through to the end of the year despite tighter policy.

Annual growth in the Chinese economy picked up to 6.9 percent in the first six months of the year, as brightening global demand boosted Chinese shipments and resilient domestic consumption helped to cushion the impact of policymakers’ efforts to reduce debt and cool the property market.

The growth momentum has surprised most China observers, especially in light of the Chinese government’s campaign to wean the economy off a years-long debt-fueled binge, with early fears of a sharper downturn well and truly put to bed.

According to a Reuters poll of analysts, over the next few weeks a flurry of data for August is likely to back market expectations for growth to taper off only modestly from the first half’s pace, with some areas of the economy such as smaller firms seen bearing the brunt of tightening financial conditions.

On the whole, the August data set should support views that China’s economy will be in good shape heading into a key Party meeting and give policymakers a comfortable cushion through to the end of the year to deepen much-needed reforms.

China’s economic numbers so far have been encouraging for world trade even as risks to the global economy have increased this year from rising US protectionism and growing tensions in the Korean Peninsula.

Strong factory reports last week showed strength in the industrial sector continued through August, while Chinese demand has lifted commodities prices from steel to iron ore and underpinned a resurgence in global growth.

Most economists now forecast China’s economy will slow only moderately through the end of the year and handily beat the government’s 2017 growth target of around 6.5 percent.

In a surprising period of stability, China’s GDP growth has accelerated or remained stable for five consecutive quarters for the first time since at least the early 1990s.

A stronger yuan in the face of a weak US dollar has helped stabilize global markets that were spooked by a year and a half of sustained weakness in the Chinese currency, which was accompanied by capital outflows and a steep decline in the nation’s foreign currency reserves.

Analysts expect China’s foreign currency reserves, the largest in the world, to have increased for a seventh straight month to $3.1 trillion in August from $3.081 trillion the month before, the Reuters poll showed.