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Jan. 29 – As fears of a U.S. recession begin to bite – Asian stock markets crashed yesterday by over 7 percent - we reproduce a story by Agence France Press on the issue. Quoting our own Senior Partner of Dezan Shira & Associates, as well as other informed names such as George Soros, Zhang Ming and Prakash Sakpal, the article examines the robust and disconnected nature of Chinese and Indian markets and poses the question of whether the developed world can reply on these two Asian giants to fend off a global downturn. Other related posts from us about this same subject can be found here, here and here.
by Benjamin Morgan
SHANGHAI, Jan 27, 2008 (AFP) – With fears mounting of a global economic slowdown, some analysts predict developing giants China and India, with their booming growth, will help lessen the impact.
Stock market turmoil this week triggered by fears of a U.S. recession in the wake of a massive mortgage crisis has ignited debate over whether Asia’s two rising economic stars are strong enough to power the world economy.
This directly challenges the 20th-century economic adage that when the U.S. economy sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.
“What is occurring is the rise of other economies to balance out those of the U.S. — and that has to be a good thing,” said Chris Devonshire-Ellis, a business consultant specializing on China and India trade.
“The U.S. has problems but these will be offset against markets elsewhere. The new world order is working,” he told AFP.
China saw scorching expansion of 11.4 percent last year, closely followed by India’s 9.4 percent, and the prospects for both economies remain strong.
“We expect China and India to support regional growth in the event of a significant slowdown in the U.S.,” said ING Barings Asia economist Prakash Sakpal.
Such a shakeup is significant because jobs and livelihoods are at stake, but also because, as financier George Soros wrote in the Financial Times, it could signal a major shift in economic power.
“The current financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of the U.S. and the rise of China and other countries in the developing world.”
But Zhang Ming, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, dismisses the notion that the Chinese and Indian economies are independent of U.S. consumption.
“If you want to look at who is going to be the motor of global growth then you have to look at who provides the biggest market for the world’s production of goods,” said Zhang.
“In the short run America is still strongest. China still has a long way to go.”
China, whose 3.4-trillion-dollar economy is about one-third derived from exports, could easily face economic difficulties if it were to lose the 2.5 growth percentage points garnered from trade, said Stephen Green, a Standard Chartered economist.
However, Indian exports represent only about 17 percent of its 1.1 trillion dollar gross domestic product, allowing it greater resiliency in the face of a U.S. recession, analysts said.
“Our economy is geared to domestic demand. We are insulated so that even if there is a U.S. recession it will not have such a direct impact on the Indian economy,” said Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry economic adviser Anjun Roy.
But given that India’s share of world trade in 2006 stood at 1.5 percent, it is not in a position to boost the world economy, Roy said, citing official statistics.
According to data published by the World Trade Organization, China’s merchandise exports last year totaled 8.0 percent of the world total, while imports stood at 6.4 percent. No cumulative figure was provided.
However, Stephen Roach, a leading economist as head of investment bank Morgan Stanley in Asia, said this week that the idea China and India could power the world economy on their own could “turn out to be a fantasy.”
Roach, who is forecasting a U.S. recession, also argued in a recent note that when the U.S. consumer is in trouble this has great consequences for the world economy.
He calculated that the American consumer spent a combined 9.5 trillion dollars last year while Chinese only laid out one trillion dollars and Indians 650 billion dollars.
“It is almost mathematically impossible for China and India to offset a pullback in American consumption,” he said.
I think I can reply to Stephen Roachs comments there about Americans purchasing more than China that that has little to do with entering a recession. Indeed, if anything the American economy has been borrowing more to produce that spending power. At some stage it needs to be repaid. And who has been buying US debt ? China. If you look at the Global debt owed by these countries it pans out as follows: USA: USD9 Trillion; China: USD1.1 Trillion; India USD200 Billion. So China and India combined owe less than 10% of what America does. Currently, China holds over $1 trillion in dollar denominated assets (of which $330 billion are U.S. Treasury notes). In comparison, $1.4 trillion represents M1 or the “tight money supply” of U.S. Dollars which suggests that the value of the U.S. Dollar could change dramatically should China ever choose to divest itself of a large portion of those reserves. That is hardly of small significance when the US is tipping into recession. It’s not what you buy that affects an economies ability to go into recession or not. It’s what you produce. China can produce a magic wand for the global economy if it wants too by manipulating it’s USD debt reserves and has already indicated it is holding too many dollars and wants to divest them. This situation has a lot of Government analysts coordinating, but at the end of the day – if the US economy tanks I don’t think the developing countries will suffer very much, especially India, whose own economy and demand for domestic goods is very sound. China can still kick it’s consumption forward and both those nations can help American consumerism for the time being until they get over the dub prime issue and get liquidity back into the US economy.