China goes for growth

China hopes to move from an economy driven by investment to one based on consumption and service. But there are plenty of doubts as to whether it can pull it off.

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The Chinese car market has cratered

Chinese consumers and businesses are losing confidence. The Chinese manufacturing sector contracted for the first timein 19 months in December. The car market suffered its steepest year-on-year drop in almost seven years in November, marking the first contraction since January 2017. Official figures show GDP growth of 6.3% in the fourth quarter, but Berenberg Bank reckons the true growth rate has fallen to 3%. The domestic stockmarket has reflected the weakening economic backdrop: it slumped by 22% in 2018.

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Marina Gerner is an award-winning journalist and columnist who has written for the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the Economist, The Guardian and Standpoint magazine in the UK; the New York Observer in the US; and die Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau in Germany.

Marina is also an adjunct professor at the NYU Stern School of Business at their London campus, and has a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Her first book, The Vagina Business, deals with the potential of “femtech” to transform women’s lives, and will be published by Icon Books in September 2024.

Marina is trilingual and lives in London.