How to play China's changing growth dynamics

CHINA

China has seen much slower growth over the last year than expected, not just by investors, but clearly less than predicted in Beijing.

Many economists despair at the opacity of official economic statistics and worry that an economy that has grown GDP at 10% should show signs of overheating. During 2011, the economy did indeed show these signs, especially in the prices of up-market urban real-estate. As in many countries, selling and permissioning land for villa development became a source of revenue for local government – whose costs for providing social services keep rising. Beijing instructed the financial authorities to stamp down on speculation and attempts were made to burn over-eager investors (pour encourager ...