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More Chinese Job Losses
China says 20 million migrant workers have lost their jobs during the economic downturn – three times greater than had been suggested previously. A survey carried out in 15 provinces suggests around 15% of the total migrant labour pool is now unemployed. Each year between five and seven million new workers from rural areas come to China’s biggest cities looking for work. They join a migrant worker labour pool estimated at around 130 million. There are fears that large numbers of unemployed workers could lead to social unrest. BBC … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
China Becoming Restless
China faces surging protests and riots in 2009 as rising unemployment stokes discontent, a state-run magazine said in a blunt warning of the hazards to Communist Party control from a sharp economic downturn. The unusually stark report in this week’s Outlook (Liaowang) Magazine, issued by the official Xinhua news agency, said faltering growth could spark anger among millions of migrant workers and university graduates left jobless. “Without doubt, now we’re entering a peak period for mass incidents,” a senior Xinhua reporter, Huang Huo, told the magazine, using the official euphemism for riots and protests. “In 2009, Chinese society may face even more conflicts and clashes that will test even more the governing abilities of all levels of the Party and government.” Reuters … Read entire article »
Filed under: China
China’s Money Pipeline Going Dry
China has used its trade surplus with the US to fund its military expansion and to pay for the 10% plus growth it claims for its economy. What happens when the money dries up? China’s exports have dropped into their biggest decline in a decade. Exports in December were down 2.8% from the same time last year, a bigger decline than November’s 2.2% drop, the China Daily said. The numbers provided fresh evidence of a serious trade slump that has caused a wave of factory closures and staff layoffs, analysts said. The communist leadership has expressed fears of social unrest as economic problems worsen. BBC … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
China Boosting Taiwan Ties
The mainland said on Wednesday [January 7 2009] that it will continue pushing forward dialogue and consultation with Taiwan in the new year by “firmly holding the main theme of peaceful development of the cross-Straits relations”. Yang Yi, spokesman of the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, made the remark at a press conference here. Yang spoke highly of the recent speech of Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, at a December 31 workshop to mark the 30th anniversary of the mainland’s “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan”. Hu’s speech summed up 30 years’ experience in developing cross-Straits relations in a comprehensive way, and he made a series of new proposals to develop the relationship, according to the official. “This important speech is of great significance for us to accomplish … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
Chinese Oil Company Begins Work in Iraq
The Chinese National Petroleum Company (CNPC) started work on a $3 billion oil project in Iraq on Friday, the first foreign firm to begin such work since dictator Saddam Hussein nationalised the industry decades ago. A CNPC delegation formally opened the al-Ahdab oi field project in Iraq’s eastern province of Wasit, officials there said. “It’s a significant event which signals the first contribution of a foreign company in developing Iraq’s oil fields for three decades,” Wasit governor Latif al-Tarfa told Reuters by telephone. “The Chinese engineers have located the spot where they will construct a field work site, and all the company’s equipment will reach the southern port of Basra soon.” Reuters More at the link … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
China Preparing for Internal Turmoil
Organised crime is on the rise in China, and courts across the country saw a 160% annual increase in gang-related crime in 2007. “Gang-related crimes have become a threat to our social stability and the economy,” one un-named official from the Public Security Bureau told the China Daily. “Murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, assault… they dare do anything,” the official said. He said the construction, transport and mining sectors were all areas that attracted gang crime, but warned that other industries were also increasingly being affected. With the economic downturn, Chinese authorities are worried that the problem will get even worse, and the new campaign aims to make sure this does not happen. The official said the authorities would “keep a close eye” on crime resulting from the slowing economy. Migrant workers are the backbone of China’s … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
Chinese Job Losses Mount
The numbers are huge, but in China they are still a small percentage of the overall workforce. That is, if the reports are accurate and not understated. The potential for a civil backlash is growing. Nearly 5 million migrant workers had returned home by the end of November, accounting for 5.4 percent of rural migrant workers, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said. Many of them had lost their jobs as the global financial crisis took its toll across the country. The 4.85 million migrant workers were mainly from 10 provinces including Sichuan, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan. Meanwhile, employers in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Fujian and Shandong, as well as Shanghai, have sacked 2.45 million people, accounting for 5.2 percent of the workforce in these areas, the ministry said. Shanghai … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
China Mines Uranium in Niger
A battle is unfolding on the stark mountains and scalloped dunes of northern Niger between a band of Tuareg nomads, who claim the riches beneath their homeland are being taken by a government that gives them little in return, and an army that calls the fighters drug traffickers and bandits. It is a new front of an old war to control the vast wealth locked beneath African soil. Niger’s northern desert caps one of the world’s largest deposits of uranium, and demand for it has surged as global warming has increased interest in nuclear power. Growing economies like China and India are scouring the globe for the crumbly ore known as yellowcake. A French mining company is building the world’s largest uranium mine in northern Niger, and a Chinese state company … Read entire article »
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Chinese Economy Threatened By Deflation
It is foolish to accept Chinese economic figures at face value. China remains a centralized communist state. It has no incentive to produce honest data on its economy, nor do the people in the trenches have any incentive to report the economic truth up the line to their superiors. Everything about the economy of China should be treated with suspicion. As the risk of deflation looms large on top of weaker exports and declining private real estate investment, China’s economy may continue to slow down in the quarters immediately ahead but regain growth momentum in the second half of next year, according to a Morgan Stanley report released on Wednesday. In its China Economics Outlook for 2009, the Hong Kong-based Morgan Stanley Asia forecast China’s baseline GDP growth would be around 7.5 … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, China's Economy
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