A major Taiwanese newspaper, The Liberty Times, recently reported that Emmanuel Macron, the French Minister of the Economy, Finance, and Industry, stated that he did not believe the just released official Chinese economic data “for a second.” Macron made those comments at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held at Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Beijing just announced that China enjoyed a GDP growth of 6.9 percent in 2015. Macron expressed his doubts and thought that the actual growth rate should be far lower than the official number. However, he also said that “we just have to get used to it.”
Macron described his “real worry,” which was for the world economy and for the geopolitical environment, which has been getting more and more unstable. At the same time, well-known global investor George Soros also said that the Chinese economy is heading for a “hard landing.” Soros estimated that the Chinese GDP growth rate will stay at around 3.5 percent. Compared to other developed countries, a lack of transparency often covers over the true picture of China’s economy.
Source: The Liberty Times, January 23, 2016
http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/business/breakingnews/1582639