Amidst global economic volatility, China seems to be struggling to maintain its course. Economists have slashed growth forecasts for the mainland, with the most pessimistic hovering at around 2% for 2022, a far cry from the 5.5% Beijing projected earlier this year. The strongest economic headwind of all is China’s ‘Covid-zero’ strategy. Harsh, targeted yet
Shanghai, widely hailed as China’s commercial capital, has become the biggest victim of the mainland’s aggressive zero-Covid strategy. Having kept new cases in single digits for much of 2021, a spike in infections saw the port city enter lockdown in late March, as part of the central government’s hard-line mandate to stymie community transmissions. The
On Saturday China’s National People’s Congress session officially opened for this year, with the country’s Premier Li Keqiang stealing the headlines for his announcements on the state of Beijing’s economy. Among the targets revealed for 2022 he told observers that China would be targeting Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of around 5.5 percent. Mr Li said Chinese officials
The Russia-Ukraine crisis could prove “disastrous” for Asian economies, with surging prices of fuel and commodities likely to add to coronavirus-induced economic woes, economists have warned. Although Western countries stopped short of enacting sanctions on direct supplies of goods from Russia as they levied “modest first-tranche” restrictions on Russian elites and financial systems, the crisis has sent jitters
By 2030, China is forecast to become the world’s largest economy, for now, it has just surpassed the EU. In a milestone moment, the economy of China surpassed the whole of the European Union (EU), for the first time. Figures released this week by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) said that the gross domestic product (GDP)
The world economy is poised to reach a remarkable milestone in 2022: Total annual GDP will soar past $100 trillion for the first time, two years earlier than previously forecast, according to the latest projections by London-based economic consulting firm CEBR. Perhaps even more notable is that total GDP is predicted to then double to $200 trillion by
China’s economy will increasingly rely on state investment, high-tech development and domestic consumption — with less input from its past staple of export manufacturing — as it stands to overtake the United States in the coming decade, analysts predict. China’s GDP should grow 5.7 percent per year through 2025 and then 4.7 percent annually until
View this article here. A leading London-based think tank has warned the Taliban will be forced to seek cooperation with China to resuscitate the country’s war-torn economy following US withdrawal and the freezing of Western aid. A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research said China was best placed to fill the vacuum
China dominates the world market for most types of electric vehicles. The Chinese stock of electric cars at 4.6 million is 42% of the world’s total. For electric buses the share is even higher at 98%, for vans it’s 65%. Underpinning this is the Chinese production of lithium ion batteries – where 77% of the world’s
View this article here. BEIJING—China’s geopolitical rise over the past four decades has been fueled by sizzling economic growth that regularly featured years of double-digit percentage-point gains. In 2020, China advanced its aspirations by simply emerging with its growth intact from a brutal year when a pandemic shook the world economy. On Monday, Beijing said
View the full article here. Significant expansion expected in milestone year After a tumultuous year that most people would prefer to forget, what now for 2021? As the new year begins, the pandemic still looms large, with the number of cases continuing to rise sharply in many Western countries. China was the only major economy
View the full article here. China and the US have vied for economic superiority but the pandemic has “tipped the rivalry in China’s favour”. China is set to overtake the US to become the world’s biggest economy five years earlier than previously thought, thanks in part to its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to
In the decade after the global financial crisis the China economy generated a quarter of global GDP but whether it can do the same this time is open to question. China cut its benchmark lending rate by 0.2 to 3.85 percent as well as announcing 1 trillion yuan ($141.3 billion) of debt financing measures
On 1 October, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) presented its latest forecast for trade growth. The outlook has darkened considerably since the last report in April. The WTO now expects world trade volumes to grow at just 1.2% in 2019 and 2.7% in 2020, down from 2.6% and 3.0%, respectively. The WTO forecasts are in
Six months ago, we highlighted the uncertain state of the Chinese economy as one of the key determinants of whether the world economy will enter a recession in 2020-21. As I am currently in Beijing to launch the Cebr report on the Belt and Road Initiative (and for the start of the Peking to Paris
To view the full article please click here. More than 200 motoring enthusiasts from across the globe went behind the wheels of their classic and vintage cars, including Bentleys, Porsches and Alfa Romeos, on Saturday in Beijing to gear up for an epic endurance drive from the Chinese capital to Paris. The 36-day
Signing on was at 9 am at which point we were told when we should collect our cars. Mike and I got allocated to the second bus which left at 10 am. We were delighted to discover the car had arrived at the warehouse. Less so that the transport company had drained out all
Initiative likely to raise world GDP by 4.2 percent in 2040, major economics report says China’s Belt and Road Initiative is likely to boost world GDP by $7.1 trillion annually within the next two decades, involving up to $8 trillion of spending over the next quarter century via global infrastructure and other related projects,
Forecasting Eye When it comes to the reliability of official Chinese statistics, it is not a secret that it is politics that guides the data and not – as one might expect – the other way around. The usefulness of official statistics has been discussed for years now as they are likely to mask
Trade wars, trade deals, free trade. Everyone is talking about it. Trade experts now warn of trade distortions. New technologies may help, but a new Cebr study reveals other things may also need fixing behind the border. Despite blunt statements from global leaders, the substance of what is being debated mostly concerns the process
Asian economies will witness significant growth in the next 15 years, according to a new analysis. China is set to overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy by 2032, according to the World Economic League Table, published annually by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, or CEBR, in London.
“Some observers expect US growth, which hit 4.2 percent in the middle of last year, to slow this year as the boost delivered by Trump’s tax cuts begins to wear off. Douglas McWilliams, deputy chairman and founder of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a consultancy in London, said the apparent row over
“A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research in London stated that tariffs placed by the US on Chinese goods had so far hit ￡1.9 billion ($2.4 billion; 2.1 billion euros) of UK exports. This is because British goods are caught up in the supply chains of both countries. Douglas McWilliams, founder
View the full article by Andrew Moody here. “The escalating trade dispute between China and the US is beginning to inflict economic damage on third-party countries, according to a new report. An analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, an economic consultancy in London, concludes that US President Donald Trump’s trade measures
Cebr analysis shows that over £1.9 billion worth of UK exports have been affected by US tariffs on China and the EU so far this year. With further tariffs on China looking likely, the value of UK goods affected could rise to up to £3.4 billion. US tariffs affect the UK directly through the
“The launch of the new routes coincided with the carrying out of Heathrow’s export climate index for by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), which revealed that £2.9bn worth of experts passed through the airport to non-EU destinations compared with the same quarter last year. The airport also saw a growth in
China’s top statisticians from the National Bureau of Statistics led by Mr Wang Quanzhong, Deputy Director of the Department of Statistical Design and Management, visited Cebr to discuss interpretation of statistics. The pictures show Cebr’s Head of Macroeconomics, Nina Skero, as well as Managing Economist Kay Neufeld and Economist Pablo Shah with the Chinese team.
“China is one of the largest and fastest growing ecommerce markets in the world. The country now has one billion internet users and increasing numbers of people are using mobile devices to shop on-the-go. As the market evolves, opportunities emerge for UK fashion brands and retailers to sell their goods online to Chinese shoppers.
China may marginally miss its growth targets this year, entering a phase of consolidation
Education & innovation key to driving China’s economic transformation
China over-leveraged but should avoid crash, liberalised capital markets could help
Thailand recorded 9.7 billion real-time electronic payment transactions last year, putting it in the third position globally after India (48.6 billion times) and China (18.5 billion times). This data was revealed in a study by ACI Worldwide, Global Data, and Centre for Economics and Business Research. “Real-time e-payments have helped boost Thailand’s GDP in 2021
Yesterday’s announcement by Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, signals that the Government is waking up to the extreme challenges faced by many UK households as prices continue to soar. All in all, the May 2022 Cost of Living Support package represents a generous intervention, which will particularly help the most vulnerable households in keeping
India led the world in real-time payment transactions in 2021, with 48.6 Bn such transactions, representing more than 40% of the global transactions, emerging from the country, according to a report. The number of real-time transactions in India was almost 2.6X higher than that of China (18 Bn transactions) and almost seven times higher than
Earlier this month, the UK revealed its latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures, which demonstrated slower growth than most predictions. A similar trend is expected in the US, though officials there are still anticipating healthy growth in 2022 regardless of the knock-on effects created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, US GDP for
Download the full report here Cebr was commissioned by ACI Worldwide to conduct research into the economic impact of real-time payments, across a sample of thirty major global economies. Real-time payments have the potential to revolutionise the way that funds are circulated across the economy by delivering payments near instantaneously, subsequently promoting economic growth, efficiency,
Real-time payments are forecast to boost India’s GDP by $45.9 billion in 2026 as real-time payments transaction volumes are set to exceed 206 billion by that time, a new report showed on Tuesday. In 2021, India accounted for the largest number of real-time transactions at 48.6 billion, almost threefold that of China (18 billion transactions)
With the expected introduction by the Federal Reserve next year of a commercial real-time payments platform for the United States, total instant payments in the U.S. market will rise nearly five-fold, to 8.9 billion, by 2026. That’s up from 1.8 billion last year. The dollar volume on these transactions will account for nearly 3% of
India accounted for the highest volume of real-time payments among businesses around the world, with over 40% of all such payments made through 2021 originating in the country. According to a report by payment solutions provider ACI Worldwide, data analytics firm GlobalData, and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), India made 48.6 billion
Real-time payments are forecast to boost India’s GDP by $45.9 billion in 2026 as real-time payments transaction volumes are set to exceed 206 billion by that time, a new report showed on Tuesday. In 2021, India accounted for the largest number of real-time transactions at 48.6 billion, almost threefold that of China (18 billion transactions) and
The year 2021 saw India’s real-time transactions moving up to a staggering 48.6 billion, almost threefold that of the closest challenger China with 18 billion transactions, and close to seven times greater than the combined real-time payments volume (7.5 billion) of the world’s leading economies: U.S., Canada, U.K., France and Germany, as per an ACI
At 48 billion, India accounted for the largest number of worldwide real-time transactions in 2021 , almost three times that of nearest challenger China (18 billion), and 6.5 times greater than the US, Canada, UK, France and Germany combined, according to a report by ACI Worldwide. For India, the growing acceptance of UPI-based mobile payment apps and
While oil prices have surged since the start of the Ukraine conflict a number of factors could now begin working to drive them back down again. Modelling by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) predicts oil prices will fall below $90 a barrel (£68.55) by 2024 with most of the fall forecast by
Young Russians are bemoaning the state of their country’s economy as prices for everyday goods soar following Western sanctions. The Russian economy is buckling under pressure as GDP falls by 10 percent so far in 2022, with a further 1.5percent reduction expected next year according to the European development bank EBRD. This would mark the
As companies pull out and sanctions grip the economy, young Russians face a dramatic change in living standards. A daily medium cup of coffee in Moscow has turned into an unrealistic luxury for Katya*, costing “as much as a whole meal in a mid-range cafe”. When the Russian capital’s shopping centres were filled with Western
China will not openly support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but, united in their opposition to a US-led world order, both countries are seeking to set new rules. Last Friday at the United Nations Security Council in New York, there was zero expectation that the US-proposed draft resolution condemning Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine and calling on
Displaying its policy wonk origins, Michael Gove’s long-awaited white paper on Levelling up the United Kingdom and one of the government’s flagship policies, is full of historical analogies and quotes. The 322-page epic starts with a tour d’horizon going back 7,000 years, the middle part is a detailed analysis of productivity differentials between regions, somewhat
New UK export business rose slightly for the first time in five months during January, the latest Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) showed. The monthly survey from IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) found stronger demand from the European Union, the US, China, Brazil and the Middle East and North Africa, while UK
In the summer of last year, hopes were riding high that the global economy could quickly return to pre-pandemic levels of output due to the success of the vaccine roll-out and economies gradually opening up again. However, the economic recovery thus far has been marred by stretched supply chains, clogged up ports and sky-high freight costs,
It is sometimes easier to look a few years ahead than it is to look a few months, and this is surely one of those times. We can only guess as to whether the pandemic will be pretty much over by the summer, but we can be confident that in five or 10 years’ time it will
After such a frenetic year, I was quite surprised to read what we had predicted a year ago and realise that we had correctly forecast quite a lot of what happened. Our world economy GDP forecast was within 0.2% which is as close to spot on as you can reasonably expect. Our warning about inflation was
The world economy is set to surpass $100 trillion for the first time in 2022, two years earlier than previously forecast, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Global gross domestic product will be lifted by the continued recovery from the pandemic, although if inflation persists it may be hard for policy makers
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) disclosed the findings in its annual World Economic League Table (WELT 2022) report on Sunday, stating that Bangladesh has been among the world’s fastest growing economies over the last decade. The country is forecast to place 41st in 2022 up from its current position of 42, reaching
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has predicted that India will regain sixth position from France next year and become the third-largest economy in 2031, a year later than previously predicted. CEBR, one of the UK’s leading economics consultancies, in its annual World Economic League Table also predicted that China will overtake the
The world’s economic output will exceed $100 trillion for the first time next year and it will take China a little longer than previously thought to overtake the United States as the No.1 economy, a report showed on Sunday. British consultancy Cebr predicted China will become the world’s top economy in dollar terms in 2030,
The UK will stay as one of the top six global economies for the next fifteen years, according to the latest annual report by the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR). In its world economic forecast, the consultancy firm said it expected the UK to achieve a trend rate of growth of 2.4 per
Britain will be well placed as the world economy emerges from the pandemic in the coming years, according to a new forecast published today. In its annual world economic league table, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicted that global gross domestic product will top $100 trillion (£75 trillion) for the first time
View this article here. Despite the continuing weaknesses of our still fragile democracy, the Philippines is no longer known in international circles as the “sick man of Asia.” Since the beginning of the Third Millennium, as we saw in previous articles in this series, the Philippines has been constantly in the list of the most
View this article here. In the CEBR report, Bangladesh ranks 40th among 193 nations this year and would ascend to 25th in 2034, a place presently held by Belgium According to the World Economic League Table 2020, Bangladesh’s economy would grow at one of the fastest rates between 2020 and 2034, thanks to a demographic
We normally allocate the country reports for Cebr’s World Economic League Table in turn. I traditionally get the first country on the list which is Afghanistan. And so I’ve been writing a macro report on its economy each year for the past four years. Over this period, the prospects for the economy have gradually deteriorated.
The latest SMMT data on car production show that in July, UK manufacturers assembled less than 54,000 new cars. This is the worst July figure since 1956 and a 37.4% year-on-year decline [1]. Up until March this year, car production had seen reasonable month-on-month growth rates and seemed to be recovering from its 2020 woes
My former CBI colleague Andrew Sentence recently described central banks’ typical attitude to emerging inflation as initial denial that there is a problem, then suggesting it was ‘just a blip’, then admitting that there are inflationary pressures but that ‘they are only temporary’, before finally realising that inflation had in fact taken off, requiring urgent
View this article here. Rapid transportation, easy communication, and minimizing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers between countries and regions are key to economic growth and prosperity. These measures lead to inclusive growth of the entire region by enabling all countries to reap fruits of their shared development and economic growth. It is, no doubt, a
View this article here. In the last month, China’s highly successful private tutoring companies and many of its top tech companies, including entertainment giant Tencent, online retailer AliBaba and ride hailing app Didi, have all fallen foul of new Chinese government regulations and faced sharp share price falls. Meanwhile the second-largest Chinese property company Evergrande, which
In the last month, China’s highly successful private tutoring companies and many of its top tech companies, including entertainment giant Tencent, online retailer AliBaba and ride hailing app Didi, have all fallen foul of new Chinese government regulations and faced sharp share price falls. Meanwhile the second-largest Chinese property company Evergrande, which has now broken
View this article here. The UK economy is taking off strongly after the acute covid crisis . However, this rapid recovery in activity can generate major problems in the short and medium term. The islands’ greater isolation after Brexit and global supply problems threaten to bring back the economy from the shortages seen in the
View this article here. Most readers will not remember the shortages of the early 1970s, specifically 1973 and 1974. My parents were furnishing a newly built house overlooking the first fairway of the Muirfield golf course in December 1973 and I vividly remember them having to get the furniture made in Malaysia and then shipped to
View this article here. Some readers will remember the shortages of the early 1970s, and specifically 1973 and 1974. My parents were furnishing a newly built house overlooking the first fairway of the Muirfield golf course in December 1973, and I vividly remember them having to get the furniture made in Malaysia and then shipped
Most readers will not remember the shortages of the early 1970s and specifically 1973 and 1974. My parents were furnishing a newly built house overlooking the first fairway of the Muirfield golf course in December 1973 and I vividly remember them having to get the furniture made in Malaysia and then shipped to the UK
View this article here. Tax experts welcomed today’s agreement among G7 finance ministers for a global minimum corporate tax rate, but warned that the apparent breakthrough left plenty of work to do. In the talks in London, which are being chaired by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, G7 finance chiefs agreed to a global minimum corporate
View this article here. The 58-year-old office manager travelled to London with her two sisters and their children. Yet Vera and her family are not alone. Thousands of people are taking similar flights, part of a migration wave that has shocked even those who have made it their business to assist Hong Kong citizens to
The UK has given a high level of priority to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 1 – 12 November 2021, with a leading Cabinet Minister, Alok Sharma, being specifically tasked with making the conference a success. This partly reflects the country’s need to acquire a different international
View the full article here. Britain has retaken fifth place in the rankings of the world’s biggest economies despite suffering one of the deepest recessions in the pandemic. According to the annual league table produced by a leading British economics consultancy, the UK has leapfrogged India and will accelerate away from France in the decade after Brexit.
France went into full lockdown on Friday. It is illegal to leave your home except for essential shopping, to work in essential businesses, for medical reasons or to take the one hour of exercise allowed. Non essential businesses will be shut down. Germany has announced also announced a national lockdown, though less severe than in
View the full article here. The high productivity of Hong Kong citizens and the tendency of migrants to work hard as they establish themselves would add to Britain’s wealth if the government’s special immigration pathway were used, the Centre for Economic and Business Research has said. The consultancy estimated that mass migration of Hongkongers to
The Foreign Secretary has developed proposals for a bespoke immigration route for the 2.8 million Hong Kong people who currently have the status of being British Nationals (Overseas) and their dependants. They will be granted five years leave to remain in the UK, with the right to work or study; after these five years, they will be able
Having already suffered pestilence, do we need to look out for the other three apocalyptic horsemen from the Book of Revelations: war, famine and death*? In the past month, there have been some signs. China and India are facing off in the Himalayas, never a good sign when both parties are nuclear-equipped. Cyberwarfare has
Authors: Shanker Singham, CEO – Competere, Douglas McWilliams, Deputy Chairman – Cebr and Cristian Niculescu-Marcu, Director of Economic Analysis – Cebr The Trade Bill setting out many of the key elements of the UK’s future trade policy post Brexit starts its second reading in the House of Commons this week. Meanwhile the government has
The need to distance ourselves from each other socially and at work because of the Covid 19 virus has shattered our economies which are now suffering their worst hits since the 1930s. While it is true that online shopping and working from home have cushioned the shutdown, my colleagues at Cebr have estimated that the
Estimates of daily economic impact of the UK’s lockdown by sector – April 2020 As the UK remains locked down this has extremely severe economic consequences. Our modelling suggests that as restrictions currently stand, the lockdown is leading to a reduction in economic output of 31%[1]. However, this figure varies between sectors across the
Cebr Global Prospects Highlights March 2020 Cebr’s Global Prospects report can be downloaded in full via this link. We have severely downgraded our forecasts for virtually all economies covered. Given that only very little hard data is available showing the impact of the virus on world economies, the forecasts largely reflect our estimates of the
China, and the world, were already burdened by tariffs. Now, some say the coronavirus could undermine fragile growth In 2002, Sars spread virtually unchecked to 37 countries, causing global panic, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing about 750. The coronavirus is spreading at a faster rate. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) says that
Almost 3 trillion renminbi was cleared in the UK between September and November last year The City of London has retained its crown as the world’s leading hub for renminbi clearing outside China, new figures show. Trades totalling nearly 3 trillion renminbi were cleared in the City between September and November last year, up
I should have been flying to Beijing on 16 February. This now seems unlikely. But my problems are minor compared with those of many others. Google, GM and Starbucks are among the companies that have shut down their entire China operations in response to coronavirus which has spread rapidly from Wuhan, where it was first
Johnson will have to get lucky to avoid a weak UK performance What is the outlook for the UK economy? Last year proved difficult for forecasters. Not the overall year, which was correctly anticipated by most as likely to be a pretty poor one, but the volatility—month-to-month and quarter-on-quarter. That was the year of
Marking our own report card,we reckon we were 100% correct in our political and economic predictions last year (copy of last year’s predictions available here for anyone who wants to check our marking). But looking back we don’t feel too pleased with our performance becausewe chickened out with a ‘don’t know’ on what was by far
India is on track to overtake Germany as the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2026, dumping all leading European economies out of the top flight as Asia continues its remarkable rise. The forecast from the Centre for Economic and Business Research in its World Economic League table 2020 underscores the change in the world’s power
A world economic league table with forecasts for 193 countries to 2034
Forecasting Eye We will be holding the launch party for my book ‘Driving the Silk Road – Halfway Round the World in a Bentley S1’ next week and actual publication day is 23 December, just in time for Christmas. The book is published by whitefox*. As we get close to Christmas it is
Cebr was delighted to welcome the National Development and Reform Comission, led by Liu Xilong, Director of the Division of Coal Management of the Bureau of Economic Operations Adjustment. Cebr Deputy Chairman Douglas McWilliams, Chief Executive Nina Skero, Head of Energy Mike McWilliams and Head of Macroeconomics Kay Neufeld presented an overview of the
Forecasting Eye Just over a year ago, Cebr wrote about the risk of a global recession rising to one in three for the 2019-20 period. Looking back at the topics that worried us most back then, we see that some of our predictions have come true while others haven’t materialised (yet). We were certainly
Forecasting Eye Our present short term focused market system does not lead to proper allocation of resources because it doesn’t price externalities properly with little account taken of long term impact of actions. This is of course changing as concern over environmental issues such as climate change is increasing but prices and actions are
Forecasting Eye Finally, after months of resisting, Parliament gave in last week and permitted the Prime Minister Boris Johnson to hold an election on 12 December. We sketch out below the likely consequences of different results for the UK economy. It may surprise some that despite a Conservative lead in the opinion polls
Prosperity paradox: more wealth leads to higher inequality Douglas McWilliams believes China is a classic case of the paradox at the heart of the global economy. Although it has delivered 800 million people out of poverty in the past 40 years, the gap between rich and poor has also grown, something the Chinese
My brother Mike and I completed the Peking to Paris Endurance Rally in the Place Vendome last Sunday in our Bentley S1. Most of the participants made it to the end though many were towed or flatbedded for parts of the journey. No official records are kept for the number of cars that make it under
