China reported on Monday that its economy expanded by 6.6 percent last year, which represents the slowest growth for China in 28 years. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund downgraded its expectations for the global economy highlighting sharp declines in Europe and warning that the risk of a major slowdown has increased.
The announcements came as world leaders and top executives gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum. In contrast to last year, when leaders talked about global prosperity, this year’s attendees expressed worry that the United States was undermining its own economy and the rest of the world’s, via a trade war and the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.
While few at Davos see a recession as imminent, officials and executives cataloged a growing number of risks, including the trade war; the possibility of Britain leaving the European Union without a final agreement with the EU; rising interest rates; high global debt levels; and politics being more polarized around the world.
With President Trump busy with the U.S. government shutdown; British Prime Minister Theresa May bogged down by Brexit negotiations; and Emmanuel Macros dealing with crowds of yellow-vested protesters, outraged at his austerity reform, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the biggest political name on the Davos guest list.
The IMF is the latest institution to scale back its growth forecasts, following downward revisions by the Federal Reserve and many banks. The IMF predicts 3.5 percent global growth in 2019 and 3.6 in 2020, down from 3.7 percent forecasts for both years in the fall. The IMF forecasts the U.S, economy will grow at 2.5 percent this year and 1.8 percent next year. Those predictions are unchanged from what the IMF said in October, but they represent a noticeable decline from about 3 percent growth last year.
China is expected to grow at 6.2 percent both years, even slower than last year. Retail sales, industrial production and property sales in China all slowed in the final quarter last year. Car sales were particularly poor, recording the first annual drop in more than two decades, and the unemployment rate is climbing. A key question is how far Beijing will go to mollify President Trump and end the trade war.
“The economy is a much bigger problem for Xi Jinping than the trade war. The last thing he wants is a bunch of angry people protesting because they’ve lost their jobs,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, a Hong Kong-based consultancy. “Slowing economic growth is putting pressure on him to solve as many problems as he can, and the trade war will be the top of his list,” Collier said.
In the United States, there seems no end in sight to the government shutdown and President Trump has not removed any of the tariffs he put in place. The president has argued that any short-term pain will be worth the long-term benefit: border security in the case of the government shutdown and more beneficial trade deals in the case of the tariffs.
“China posts slowest economic numbers since 1990 due to U.S. trade tensions and new policies. Makes so much sense for China to finally do a Real Deal and stop playing around,” Trump tweeted Monday evening.
The rapidly slowing euro zone, especially Germany, France, and Italy were the biggest factor in the revised predictions. Germany is struggling as exports weaken and its auto sector tries to adjust to new regulations. France is trying to rebound from damaging street protests and Italy is battling debt problems and sluggish spending.
Chief executives ranked a global recession as their number one concern for 2019, according to a survey released this week of nearly 800 top business leaders around the world. Global trade threats came in second.
