Blog
Weathering the Storm - China in Pole Position
11th May 2009
Two articles on China today. Alastair Darling writes in the times about the importance of capital flows between the UK and China ahead of an important economic summit between the two countries. His article conveniently ignores the fact that only 2 per cent of our exports find their way into the Middle Kingdom - a missed opportunity.
“The UK is the largest European investor in China. Some 6,000 British-invested projects there span the country in a number of sectors: Vodafone in telecommunications, BP in energy, AstraZeneca for pharmaceuticals, HSBC and Standard Chartered in financial services, to name a few. And the UK is the second top European destination for Chinese inward investment. Nearly 400 companies have set up in our country, and more than 60 are listed on our stock exchanges. They offer high-skilled jobs in engineering, telecoms and financial services.”
More here
Stephen King in the Indpendent finds that China is better placed than most to use fiscal policy as a counter cyclical policy to stabilise output and jobs.
“China is better placed than most. It has a large balance of payments current account surplus which, in turn, implies that there is no shortage of domestic savings from which the Beijing government can raise funds to spend on infrastructure projects.”
More here
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.