China Fine Tunes Economic Stimulus     12/06 06:16

   

   BANGKOK (AP) -- China is fine-tuning policies to rev up its economy as it 
braces for uncertain relations with the United States under President-elect 
Donald Trump, giving manufacturers a 20% made-in-China price advantage in sales 
to the Chinese government.

   The moves come ahead of a top-level annual economic planning conference 
scheduled for next week that will help set China's strategy for the coming year.

   The Ministry of Finance announced it is seeking public comment on the 
made-in-China plan until Jan. 4. To qualify, products have to be made entirely 
in China, from the raw materials stage to the finished products, it said, 
although some components must just meet standards for a share of domestic-based 
production. Farm, forestry, minerals and fisheries products are excluded, the 
state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

   Government procurement generally amounts to about 10% or more of business 
activity in major economies.

   Under the program, companies will be given a 20% price advantage, with the 
government making up the difference, part of a series of moves to underpin 
stronger sales that also includes promoting insurance underwriting and easier 
access to financing for e-commerce and small- and mid-sized "little giants" and 
"hidden champions."

   Shares in China have surged this week on expectations that the planning 
meeting will yield more support for the slowing economy as a revival in exports 
helps to compensate for a sluggish property market and subdued consumer 
spending. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite index both 
gained more than 2% this week.

   Before that closed-door meeting convenes in Beijing, Premier Li Qiang was 
due to hold a conference Monday with heads of 10 major international 
organizations including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World 
Trade Organization, the Foreign Ministry said in a notice on its website.

   The themes of the gathering focus on promoting "global common prosperity," 
"upholding multilateralism" and making advances in China's own reforms and 
modernization, it said.

   Major changes may be unlikely as China's leaders wait to see what Trump does.

   "The policymakers would likely reserve policy room for the four-year period 
of the Trump administration," economists at ANZ Research said in a report. Key 
areas to focus on will be boosting consumer spending and more help for the 
property sector, it said.

   China's leaders set a target for economic growth of "about 5%" for this 
year. In the first three quarters, growth averaged 4.8%, and has gradually 
slowed. Over the past few months, regulators have rolled out a slew of policies 
meant to help reverse the downturn in the housing market and encourage more 
spending by Chinese households that have been tightening purse strings since 
the pandemic.

   Setting the tone ahead of next week's meetings, a commentary in the ruling 
Communist Party's newspaper The People's Daily downplayed the usual focus on 
meeting growth targets, noting that the industrial boom that has made China the 
world's second-largest economy came at a "huge price in resources and the 
environment."

   "If we do not break with the worship of speed ... even if we temporarily 
increase the speed, we will detract from future growth," it said. "It is not 
that we cannot go faster, but that we do not want to."