http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/16/188582.html
الإثنين 22 صفر 1433هـ - 16 يناير 2012م As goes China, so goes the rest of the world The Chinese economy, including Beijing, above, has seen stupendous growth during the past several years, but has begun to slow down, causing worry among some analysts. (Reuters) Emily Kaiser and Stella Dawson, Reuters Walk softly. Global growth looks to be smoothly downshifting as China slows, the U.S. economy firms, and troubled Europe, at least for now, avoids a messy crash. Ratings downgrades on nine euro zone countries by Standard & Poor's late Friday including France, Italy and Spain sent a shiver through financial markets. But the move was long telegraphed, likely limiting any spillover. A global economy slowing only gently would be an immense relief after a fraught end to 2011, but it is far from guaranteed. Greek debt talks could collapse next week in a tussle over the size of losses banks should face. Tensions over Iran's nuclear program continue to threaten oil markets. And U.S. data last week showed surprisingly weak retail sales and a rise in jobless claims, a reminder that the U.S. recovery is not yet out of the woods. So, even as signs suggest only a slight easing in global growth this year to a pace around 3 percent, the pitfalls are numerous. Prime among them is China. Data on Tuesday is expected to show growth in China, the world's second-largest economy, cooled in the fourth quarter to 8.7 percent from a year earlier, against 9.1 percent in the prior quarter. It would be the slowest pace of growth since mid-2009, when the global economy was crawling out of a deep recession. The biggest question is how much of the slowdown can be blamed on slackening worldwide demand for China's exports and how much on weakening domestic growth. If China's internal growth is stalling, that would put yet another drag on countries such as Germany and the United States, which are counting on strong exports themselves to help compensate for sluggish growth at home. U.S. trade data for November was mildly encouraging on that score, with exports to China up by 2.1 percent to their highest level in almost a year. But data from China showed that in December demand slackened and imports from the United States fell 2.7 percent, and the nation's overall trade surplus fell to a three-year low, raising alarms around the world of a hard landing. China's inflation rate also eased, and foreign exchange reserves declined in November and December, the first consecutive monthly fall since early 2009, another clear sign that China's days of export-led growth are waning and capital is leaving the country. Asha Bangalore, an economist at Northern Trust in Chicago, zeroed in on another key trading relationship: China and Germany. Chinese imports from Germany increased by 4.2 percent in December, marking the slowest growth rate since October 2009. The broader implication of these trends is that not only is German business activity hit by a deceleration of imports of China, but the intricate web of world trade has a wide reach and will translate into a setback in business conditions among other trading partners," Bangalore wrote to clients last week. Germany's economy contracted by about 0.25 percent quarter-on-quarter over the last three months of 2011, deepening worries that the entire euro zone is slipping into a recession. جميع الحقوق محفوظة لقناة العربية © 2010 ------------------------------------ Post message: prole...@egroups.com Subscribe : proletar-subscr...@egroups.com Unsubscribe : proletar-unsubscr...@egroups.com List owner : proletar-ow...@egroups.com Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: proletar-dig...@yahoogroups.com proletar-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: proletar-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
