With China in the midst of its New Year celebrations this week, Medley Global Advisors, a macro research service owned by the FT, has taken advantage of quiet markets to address some of the more structural issues facing the country in 2017.
The first question is whether this year will see a further rebalancing of the economy towards consumption and away from investment. With growth for 2016 having come in exactly as planned at 6.7 per cent (officially at least), MGA estimates that household consumption rose one percentage point to 39 per cent of nominal GDP last year. This is still well below the level of more developed economies but represents steady progress since the blowout following the financial crisis.
Unfortunately, 2017 may not move the needle further. Urban income growth is down from 16 per cent annually as recently as 2011 to just over 8 per cent now and consumers face rapidly decelerating wage increases while having to digest the recent jump in property prices. On that basis, they may well rein in their spending.