The slowdown in China’s economy seems to be on hold. Consider the three components of the “Keqiang index”, named for premier Li Keqiang’s leaked admission that he did not trust official gross domestic product data (statistics with Chinese characteristics, perhaps).
Electricity use shrank at the fastest annual pace in more than a decade earlier this year, but by last month had recovered to rise almost 8 per cent. Rail freight had been dropping at more than 5 per cent, but the drop last month improved to 1 per cent.
The broadest measure of lending, known as total social financing, was falling at more than 10 per cent annually, raising doubts about China’s debt-financed growth model. In May and June, it recovered sharply, with only seven months in the past 10 years seeing more lending than June.