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February 10 – China's bilateral trade value fell 7.8% year on year to $272.6 billion in January, where exports were down 0.5% to $149.94 billion and imports were down 15.3% to $122.66 billion, customs figures show. It was the first decline in exports in two years as the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday disrupted trade activity.
February 8 – China's minimum wage will rise 13% annually and the urban unemployment rate will be kept below 5% between 2011 and 2015, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said.
February 6 – The value of China's exports will grow 10% in 2011 as pressure on the Chinese currency to appreciate eases, Fan Gang, a prominent economist, argued.
February 2 – The Chinese government will establish a ¥15 billion fund to back the growth of financially beleaguered small and midsized businesses, premier Wen Jiabao said. China will also extend tax breaks for small companies and will ask banks to increase tolerance of nonperforming loans to those companies.
February 1 – China issued ¥7.8 trillion of bonds in 2011, down 20.4% from the year before, according to figures from the central bank. The issuance of treasury bonds and bills decreased last year, while the issuance of financial bonds increased.
January 31 – China will turn Shanghai into a global financial hub by the end of 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission said, revealing a concrete goal of more than doubling the trading volume of the city's financial markets. The amount, excluding foreign exchange transactions, will reach ¥1,000 trillion by 2015, up from ¥386.2 trillion in 2011.
January 31 – The World Trade Organization has upheld a ruling against China's policies that had cut its exports of raw materials, particularly rare earth elements used in the steel and chemical industries. China said it will abide by the WTO findings.
January 31 – The Chinese government is working on investing pension funds in its stock market and up to 30% of the funds, or ¥580 billion, are likely to be funneled into the stock market by the end of Q1 2012, the China Securities Journal reported.
January 21 – China's central government-owned enterprises, the largest companies in the country, posted ¥20.24 trillion in revenues and ¥917.33 billion in net profits in 2011, up 20.8% and 6.4% respectively from the year before.
January 20 – China created 12.2 million jobs in urban areas in 2011, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said. The urban unemployment rate stood at 4.1% as of the end of 2011.
January 20 – China's rail passenger traffic totaled 1.86 billion people and rail cargo traffic totaled 3.93 billion tons in 2011, up 11.1% and 8% respectively from the year before, the Ministry of Railways said.
January 20 – China's Center for Forecasting Science expects the appreciation of the Renminbi against the dollar to slow to 3% this year from 4.7% in 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing center director Wang Shouyang. The slowdown reflects a growing demand for dollars at a time of economic uncertainty, decelerating Chinese growth and a diminishing Chinese trade surplus.
January 20 – China's fiscal revenue grew 24.8% to ¥10.37 trillion and fiscal expenditures grew 21.2% to ¥10.89 trillion in 2011, according to the Ministry of Finance.
January 19 – China's state-owned enterprises posted ¥36.79 trillion in revenues and ¥2.26 trillion in gross profits in 2011, up 21.5% and 12.8% respectively from the year before, the Ministry of Finance said.
January 18 – China's Q4 growth, while the slowest in more than two years, was stronger than many analysts had forecast and was a blow to those predicting a hard landing for its economy, Bloomberg reported, citing Jim O'Neill, who coined the term BRIC a decade ago. That 8.9% rate exceeded the 8.7% median estimate of 26 economists surveyed by Bloomberg and was above the 8% that signals a soft landing.
January 18 – Foreign direct investment in China dropped 12.7% year on year to $12.24 billion in December, the second consecutive month of decline, as Europe's debt crisis dented local companies' sentiment, according to the Ministry of Commerce. However, China's FDI rose 9.7% to a record $116 billion and 27,712 foreign businesses were given licenses to operate in the country in 2011.
January 17 – China's economy expanded by 8.9% from a year earlier in Q4 2011, down from 9.1% in the previous quarter and marking the slowest pace in 10 quarters, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Gross domestic product grew 9.2% to ¥47.16 trillion in 2011, and is expected to grow 8.2% in 2012.
January 17 – China's urban fixed asset investment rose 23.8% to ¥30.19 trillion in 2011, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Fixed asset investment in the primary sector was up 25% to ¥679.2 billion; fixed asset investment in the secondary sector was up 27.3% to ¥13.23 trillion; and fixed asset investment in the tertiary sector was up 21.1% to ¥16.29 trillion.
January 17 – China's urban disposable income rose 14.1% to ¥21,810 per person in 2011, the National Bureau of Statistics said. The growth will moderate to 8.4% if food price hikes are accounted for.
January 16 – China's growth still needs to be bolstered by investment although there is room to boost consume spending, Bloomberg reported, citing Justin Lin, the World Bank's chief economist. China needs to upgrade its industries and technology and improve productivity so investment is still important for the country, Lin added.
January 13 – Output from China's food industry is expected to expand 15% annually to ¥12.3 trillion by the end of 2015, according to a five-year plan released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
January 13 – China's foreign exchange reserves shrank by $20.6 billion to $3.18 trillion in Q4 2011, the first decline in more than a decade as foreign investment slowed, the central bank said. However, the amount grew 11.7% from the beginning of 2011.
January 12 – China is expected to attract $120 billion in foreign direct investment annually in the next five years, the Ministry of Commerce said.
January 12 – Goods exported by private businesses in China grew 33.3% year on year to $570 billion in the first 11 months of 2011, accounting for one-third of the nation's total, according to the All China Federation of Industry & Commerce.
$1 = ¥6.29
@2011 China Economy @ The China Perspective.
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