ForexLive Asia-Pacific FX news wrap: China data dump, 2023 growth hits government target

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We
had plenty of data from China today.</p><ul><li>China's
December home prices fell
by 0.45% m/m,
more deeply
than November’s
-0.37% and the
fastest drop since February 2015. the December fall was
the sixth in succession.
</li><li>2023
GDP hit the government target of around 5%, coming in at 5.2%. The Q4
q/q was a very slight miss</li><li>Economic
data for December was mixed, with a miss for retail sales and a beat
of industrial output</li><li>China’s
population declined by 2 million in 2023</li></ul><p>More
on all of those in the bullet points above.</p><p>China’s
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) began publishing the youth
unemployment rate again, the rate for people aged 16-24 ex-students
at school was 14.9% in December.
</p><p>As
a round up of the year passed, annual growth of China's major
economic indicators in 2023:</p><p>GDP:
↑5.2%</p><ul><li>Industrial
output: ↑4.6%</li><li>Retail
sales:↑7.2%</li><li>Fixed
asset investment:↑3%</li><li>CPI:↑0.2%</li><li>Per
capita disposable income: ↑6.3%</li><li>Unemployment
rate: ↓ to 5.2%</li></ul><p>Bear
in mind that with China in the grip of deflation and loan prime rates
at 3.45% for the one year and 4.20% for the five year, real interest
rates in China are much, much higher than in the US, Europe, the UK, Australia …. OK, basically everywhere. While 2024 economic
growth is expected to be a challenge there is scope for both fiscal
(subject to debt fears being overcome) and monetary policy (subject to fears of yuan decline and capital outflows being
overcome) boost.</p><p>News
flow otherwise was subdued and of no impact.
</p><p>For
major forex rates the dominant flow was another, though small, gain
for the US dollar across the majors board.
</p><p>Equities
in the region fell.
</p><p>In
US politics, the Senate began debate on the interim spending bill.
Pundits expect final passage to be likely Thursday, ahead of Friday’s
deadline.
</p><p>USD/JPY stayed above 147.00:</p>

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.