China’s economic weakness cannot be adequately measured by its monthly factory surveys, according to American Enterprise Institute economist Derek Scissors, who said Beijing’s decades-long preference for production over consumption has created excess manufacturing supply and increased reliance on foreign markets.
“The official PMIs [Purchasing Managers’ Indexes] don’t mean much of anything,” Scissors told The Epoch Times.
Instead, he pointed to fixed-asset investment, which even China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports is declining. A direct comparison of the agency’s published totals indicates a substantially steeper fall than its headline rate, he said.
Scissors said that investment decline is occurring within an economy that has favored manufacturing over services and production over household consumption for more than two decades….
China Has Favored Production Over Consumption for Decades, Economist Says
