Workers at a steel factory in Dalian, Liaoning province. (Photo/China Daily)
Editor's note: In a long-ranging interview with China Daily website, John J. Kirton, Professor and Director of G7 Research Group from Toronto University, comments on China's Q3 data and discusses the opportunities and challenges both China and world are faced up with in 2017. He emphasized that the Q3 data confirm that China continues to have strong, steady macroeconomic growth.
1, what's your evaluation of Q3 data? Many analysts pay special attention to PPI, the producer price index, which gauges factory-gate prices, rose by 0.1 percent year-on-year in September and had been falling in China since March 2012, does the PPI growth hint reform measures are taking effect?
The Q3 data confirm that China continues to have strong, steady macroeconomic growth. It thus continues to serve as the great global growth engine and stabilizer protecting the global economy from such shocks as Britain's decision to leave the European Union. Encouragingly, this small rise in the producer price index suggests that China's domestic economic reform measures are taking effect, although more and broader data will be needed to confirm the ability of China's leaders to meet their goals.
2, Could you give some predictions around the growth rate of China's GDP for 2016 the whole year, and your outlook for 2017? Is it possible that China's economy would reach the bottom at the end of 2016 and then welcome a rebound in 2017?
China's GDP growth rate for 2016 as a whole will come in very close to 6.7%. The forecast for 2017 is clouded by the uncertainty in the United States over the economic and other policies to be adopted by Donald Trump when he assumes the office of President in January. Should he inject major new fiscal stimulus and infrastructure spending while keeping trade open with China, this boost from the United States could lift China's growth in 2017 beyond 6.7%.
3, Could you give some comments on the most impressive achievements and the bottlenecks that developed economies and emerging markets met in 2016 respectively?
The most impressive achievement that developing and emerging markets met respectively in 2016 was maintaining growth beyond that of the established economies while reducing inequalities within their countries, while most established most established economies fell further behind in this regard. At the same time, the leading emerging economies suffering a plunge in growth -- Brazil and South Africa -- are paving the way for a strong recovery by confronting the pervasive corruption that has crippled their growth and that of emerging and developing economies everywhere. This will be reinforced by the success of the G20 Hangzhou Summit under the impressive leadership of President Xi Jinping in aggressively attacking corruption in a coordinated way. However, both developed and emerging economies suffer from increasing deficits and debt in the government sectors at all levels, and in property markets in some countries.
