A new survey conducted by MLIV Pulse has shown that China is in danger of exporting fresh inflation turmoil due to its zero-Covid policy.
Intensifying the world’s supply-chain woes and challenging efforts, the Covid-zero strategy in China has forced central bankers to rein in inflation that’s running at multi-decade highs.
A majority of 540 participants of the survey have projected that China will stand firm on the severe lockdown policies that have disrupted the supply of everything from Adidas sneakers and Rolls-Royce cars to Nvidia computer chips.
Trailing behind developed-world peers this year, Chinese stocks have suffered due to long-running Covid curbs in Shanghai.
Warning of more economic difficulties ahead, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told a State Council meeting the challenges now are “greater than when the pandemic hit hard in 2020.”
According to a readout by the official Xinhua news agency, Li said “We are currently at a critical juncture in determining the economic trend of the whole year.”
China is the last major economy welded to a policy of mass testing and hard lockdowns to eliminate virus clusters, but the strict curbs have battered businesses.
Li’s remarks are the latest in a growing chorus of calls from officials and business leaders for more balance between stopping the virus and helping the ailing economy.
As regulators step up efforts to channel fresh capital into the struggling real estate sector and aid a virus-hit economy, China’s first public real estate investment trusts (REITs) based on residential properties will be launched soon.
REITs are a collective investment scheme that sells shares in a trust that owns a collection of properties or infrastructure assets.
While publishing rules for the issuance of rental apartment REITs, regulators said “It will also help prevent and reduce major risks, and maintain the stable and healthy development of the real estate market.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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