China Economics Update China Activity & Spending (Apr. 2025) After an improvement in March, China’s economy looks to have slowed again last month, with firms and households turning more cautious due to the trade war. While the recent US-China tariff de... 19th May 2025 · 2 mins read
China Economics Update Hong Kong property prices won't recover this decade While sales volumes have picked up since the start of last year, we expect residential property prices in Hong Kong to continue to fall until Fed cuts resume. Even then, given the structural headwinds... 14th May 2025 · 5 mins read
Global Economics Update Tariffs: where we stand and potential flashpoints The recent climbdown has left the effective US tariff on the rest of the world at around 15% as opposed to the 27% which was threatened at the height of this year’s trade war. While this is still the... 13th May 2025 · 8 mins read
Global Economics Update A truce in the US-China trade war The US and China have each suspended for 90 days all but 10% of their Liberation Day tariffs and cancelled other retaliatory tariffs. This is a substantial de-escalation. However, the US still has... 12th May 2025 · 4 mins read
Global Economics Update Global Trade Stress Monitor To cut through the noise surrounding tariff impacts, we’ve pinpointed seven key stages in the global trade cycle – tracking in real time how each is responding to tariffs. This tool helps clients... 13th May 2025 (Updated 22nd May 2025) · 0 mins read
China Economics Update Gauging the fallout in China’s labour market Chinese policymakers will probably find ways to keep the published unemployment rate close to their “around 5.5%” target for this year. But this may mask broader weakness in the labour market as a... 7th May 2025 · 5 mins read
China Economics Update Monetary easing alone won’t cut it Chinese policymakers have announced a raft of new monetary easing measures. These will help to shore up growth at the margin. But any boost to credit demand will be modest and today’s moves are no... 7th May 2025 · 3 mins read
China Economics Update Can China's domestic consumers take the place of US ones? Retail sales in China are more than ten times larger than the country’s exports to the US. As such, domestic goods consumption would only need to rise by a few percent over the next couple of years to... 22nd April 2025 · 4 mins read
Global Economics Update Mapping out trade war scenarios President Trump’s trade war has created material downside risks for the global economy. Our forecasts assume that tariffs on most countries outside China will stay at 10% and retaliation by other... 10th April 2025 · 9 mins read
China Economics Update China’s exports to the US set to collapse Unless they are rolled back, the latest US tariff hikes mean that China’s shipments to the US will more than halve over the coming years, even assuming the renminbi weakens to 8.00/$. This will reduce... 9th April 2025 · 4 mins read
China Economics Update China hits back, hard China has responded to US tariffs with an additional 34% tariff on all US goods, the most sweeping it has ever imposed. Some US companies have also been added to China’s unreliable entities list and... 4th April 2025 · 3 mins read
Global Economics Update Answering your questions about Liberation Day tariffs We hosted two online Drop-In sessions on 3rd April to discuss the fallout from President Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement. (See a recording here.) This Update contains answers to some of the... 3rd April 2025 · 9 mins read
China Economics Update US tariff rate on China now almost 70% We’d already assumed substantial US tariffs on China in our forecasts. But the latest hikes take them even higher than we had anticipated. The economic hit to China will range between 0.5-1.0% of GDP... 3rd April 2025 · 5 mins read
Commodities Update Central banks buying more gold ≠ ditching the dollar Whilst buying gold may reduce central banks’ overall exposure to the dollar, we don’t think that the surge in central bank gold demand reflects a severe loss of confidence in the greenback. Instead... 31st March 2025 · 4 mins read
Global Economics Update Could the US coerce others to increase tariffs on China? The US would have to exert a lot of pressure to coerce most major countries into putting large tariffs on goods from China. Curtailing trade with China would have an economic cost and even countries... 31st March 2025 · 4 mins read
Global Economics Update The implications of US vehicle tariffs In this Update, we answer several key questions about how the announced 25% tariffs on US imports of autos and parts might affect the global economy and the US itself. Mexico, Slovakia and Korea are... 27th March 2025 · 7 mins read
