China’s economic bright spots provide a warning

What a visit to an optimistic port reveals


  • by Ningbo
  • 03 14, 2024
  • in Finance and economics

If America’s economy begins to deteriorate, people in Ningbo will be among the first to know. The eastern Chinese port, home to 9.6m residents, contains a sprawling industrial district. Its goods are prepared for export, and are shipped abroad via a deepwater harbour, which is one of the world’s busiest. The coast of Zhejiang province is dotted with similar entrepôts, where thousands of mostly family-owned firms have built up a diverse manufacturing base over the past 40 years. They make everything from textiles and car parts to electronics and machine components.Ningbo is also a city of political importance. Although private industry, rather than state-backed enterprise, has thrived in the region, it has nevertheless been held up as a model of “common prosperity”—Xi Jinping’s way of dealing with wealth inequality. And amid a gloomy overall outlook, with much of the country mired in a property crisis and suffering from weak consumer demand, surprisingly strong exports and fading fears of a recession in America have combined to make Ningbo one of China’s most optimistic cities.

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