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China’s economy is waiting for stimulus. Here are the country’s plans

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Passengers walk along the platform after disembarking from a train at Chongqing North Railway Station during the first day of the 2025 Spring Festival travel rush on Jan. 14, 2025.

Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images

BEIJING — As promised government support is still to meaningfully kick in, China’s economy hasn’t yet seen the turnaround investors have been waiting for.

While policymakers have, since late September, cut interest rates and announced broad stimulus plans, details on highly anticipated fiscal support won’t likely come until an annual parliamentary meeting in March. Official GDP figures for 2024 are due Friday.

“China’s fiscal stimulus is not yet enough to address the drags on economic growth … We are cautious long term given China’s structural challenges,” BlackRock Investment Institute said in a weekly report Tuesday. The firm, which is modestly overweight Chinese stocks, indicated it was ready to buy more if the circumstances changed.

Of growing urgency in the meantime is the drop in domestic demand, and worries about deflation. Consumer prices barely rose in 2024, up by just 0.5% after excluding volatile food and energy prices. That’s the slowest rise in at least 10 years, according to records available on the Wind Information database.

“Consumer spending remains weak, foreign investment is declining, and some industries face growth pressure,” Yin Yong, Beijing city mayor, said Tuesday in an official annual report.

DBS: 'more vitality in capital markets' is needed to revive China's consumer and business confidence

The capital city targets 2% consumer price inflation for 2025, and aims to bolster tech development. While nationwide economic goals won’t come out until March, senior economic and finance officials have told reporters in the last two weeks that fiscal support is in the works, and issuance of ultra-long bonds to spur consumption would exceed last year’s.

China’s announced stimulus will begin to take effect this year, but it will likely take time to see a significant impact, Mi Yang, head of research for north China at property consultancy JLL, told reporters in Beijing last week.

Pressure on the commercial property market will continue this year, and prices may accelerate their drop before recovering, he said.

Rents in Beijing for high-end offices, called Grade A, fell 16% in 2024 and are expected to drop by nearly 15% this year, with some rentals even nearing 2008 or 2009 levels, according to JLL.

New shopping centers in Beijing opened in 2024 with average occupancy rates of 72% — previously such malls would not be opened if the rate was below 75% or much closer to 100%, JLL said. Within a year, however, the new malls have seen occupancy rates reach 90%, the consultancy said.

Home appliances

Unlike the U.S. during the Covid-19 pandemic, China has not handed out cash to consumers. Instead, Chinese authorities in late July announced 150 billion yuan ($20.46 billion) in ultra-long bonds for trade-in subsidies and another 150 billion yuan for equipment upgrades.

China has already issued 81 billion yuan for this year’s trade-in program, officials said this month. It covers more home appliances, electric cars and an up to 15% discount on smartphones priced at 6,000 yuan or less.

Consumers who buy premium phones tend to upgrade and recycle their devices more frequently than buyers on the lower end of the market, indicating the government may want to encourage a new group to shorten their upgrade cycle, said Rex Chen, CFO of ATRenew, which operates stores for processing smartphones and other secondhand goods.

Chen told CNBC on Monday he expects the trade-in subsidies program can boost recycling transaction volumes of eligible products on the platform by at least 10 percentage points, up from 25% growth in 2024. He also expects the government to carry out a similar trade-in policy for the next few years.

However, it’s less clear whether the trade-in program alone can lead to a sustained recovery in consumer demand.

Nomura’s Chief China Economist Ting Lu said in a report Tuesday that he expects the sales boost to fade by the second half of this year, and that tepid new home sales will limit demand for home appliances.

Real estate

Real estate and related sectors such as construction once accounted for more than a quarter of China’s economy. When central authorities started cracking down on developers’ high debt levels in 2020, that had ripple effects on the economy, alongside the Covid-19 pandemic.

China shifted its stance on real estate in September following a high-level meeting led by President Xi Jinping that called for halting the sector’s decline.

Measures to prop up the sector include using a whitelist process to finish construction on the many apartments that have been sold but yet not been built due to developers’ financial constraints. New apartments in China are typically sold ahead of completion.

Jeremy Zook, lead analyst for China at Fitch Ratings, said the real estate market had yet not reached a bottom, and that authorities might provide more direct support. He pointed out that it was difficult for the economy to transition away from real estate, despite China’s wishes to reduce its reliance on the sector for growth.

The government’s latest measures have helped the broader stock market rally, and lifted sentiment slightly.

Sales of new homes in China’s largest cities over the last 30 days have surged by nearly 40% from a year ago, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a Jan. 5 report.

But they cautioned that high inventory levels in smaller cities indicate property prices “have further room to fall” and that homebuilding is “likely to remain depressed for years to come.”

In the relatively affluent city of Foshan — near Guangzhou city in southern China — housing inventory could take 20 months to clear in one district, and seven months in another district, according to a 2024 report from Beike Research Institute, a firm affiliated with a major housing sales platform in China.

The city overall saw floor space sold last year fall by 16% to the lowest in 10 years, the report said.

Geopolitical concerns

Complicating China’s economic challenges are tensions with the U.S. Similar to Washington’s export controls, Beijing has also made efforts to ensure national security by prioritizing domestic players in strategic sectors such as technology.

That stance has pressured an increasing number of European businesses in China to localize — despite added costs and reduced productivity — if they are to retain customers in the country, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said in a report last week.

Official Chinese statements have also emphasized coupling security with development.

U.S.-China relations might not as bad under Trump's second term as his first term: David Woo

A slogan for part of Beijing’s efforts to support growth is an effort to build “security capabilities in key areas,” pointed out Yang Ping, director of the investment research institute within the National Development and Reform Commission. She was speaking at a press event Wednesday.

This year, “boosting consumption has been prioritized ahead of improving investment efficiency,” Yang said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. “Expanding and boosting consumption are the main focus of this year’s policy adjustment.”

She dismissed concerns that the impact of trade-in subsidies on consumption would fade after an initial spike, and indicated more details would emerge after the March parliamentary meeting.

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How buy now, payer later apps could be crushing your credit

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Small, everyday purchases like a meal from DoorDash are now able to be financed through eat now, pay later options — a practice that some experts deem “predatory.”

“You’ve got to have enough sense to not follow the urge to finance a taco, okay? You have got to be an adult,” career coach Ken Coleman told “The Big Money Show,” Wednesday. 

“This is predatory, and it’s going to get a lot of people in deep trouble.”

RISKS OF BUY NOW, PAY LATER: ‘TICKET TO OVERSPENDING,’ EXPERT SAYS

klarna, doordash

DoorDash and Klarna are now partnering up to extend buy now, pay later options to consumers. (Reuters, Getty / Getty Images)

Financial wellness experts are continuously sounding the alarm to cash-strapped consumers, warning them of the devastating impact this financial strategy could have on their credit score as some lenders will begin reporting those loans to credit agencies.

Consumers may risk getting hit with late fees and interest rates, similar to credit cards. 

“So your sandwich might show up on your FICO score, especially if you pay for it late,” FOX Business’ Jackie DeAngelis explained.

EXPERTS WARN HIDDEN RISKS OF BUY NOW, PAY LATER

Major players like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna have risen to prominence at a time when Americans continue to grapple with persisting inflation, high interest rates and student loan payments, which resumed in October 2023 after a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The Big Money Show” co-host Taylor Riggs offered a different perspective, suggesting that company CEOs have a “duty” to attract as many customers as they want. 

“Unfortunately for me, this always comes down to financial literacy — which I know is so much in your heart about training people to save now by later,” she told Coleman, who regularly offers financial advice to callers on “The Ramsey Show.”

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Coleman continued to come to the defense of financially “desperate” consumers, arguing that companies are targeting “immature” customers. 

“I’m for American businesses being able to do whatever they want to do under the law. That’s fine. But let’s still call it what it is: it’s predatory, and they know who their customers are,” Coleman concluded, “And I’m telling you, they’re talking about weak-minded, immature, desperate people.”

FOX Business’ Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.

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DeepSeek AI excitement spills over to Hong Kong’s IPO market

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The Exchange Square Complex, which houses the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, on Feb. 26, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese companies are jumping at a window of opportunity to go public in Hong Kong as global investors start to return to the region, following the news of DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence breakthrough in late January.

It’s a level of excitement that has not been felt for more than three years, despite the overhang of U.S. trade tensions. Initial public offerings are a lucrative way for early investors in startups to exit and reap a return.

“Everyone is working so perfectly together. IPO candidates, the investor and the regulators,” said George Chan, global IPO leader at EY. “All these three parties are working so perfectly at this moment to actually cultivate a healthy Hong Kong IPO market.”

“The U.S. long-term fund has returned. It shows investors are getting more confident [about] China,” he said, adding that post-IPO performance has also been encouraging.

Chinese bubble tea giant Mixue went public on March 3 in a highly oversubscribed Hong Kong listing. And in a sign of more to come, Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) filed in February for what could be Hong Kong’s largest IPO since 2021, when short-video company Kuaishou listed.

Still think it is a little risky to bet on specific companies or industries in China: GAO Capital

News of China-based DeepSeek’s claims to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT in reasoning capabilities at a lower cost — despite U.S. restrictions on Chinese access to advanced chips for training AI models — hit global tech stocks in late January, while spurring a rally in China. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged to three-year highs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also held a rare meeting with tech entrepreneurs in February, and Beijing has signaled greater support for the private sector, after taking a more restrictive stance in recent years.

Six initial public offerings in Hong Kong raised more than 1 billion Hong Kong dollars ($130 million) in the first quarter — a jump from just one listing of that size in the year-ago period — according to KPMG.

In all, the consultancy said, Hong Kong saw 15 IPOs in all of the first quarter which raised 17.7 billion HKD — the best start to a year since 2021.

There’s still a long way to go before recovering to that level. Hong Kong saw 32 IPOs in the first quarter of 2021 that raised a whopping 132.7 billion HKD, according to KPMG.

The Hong Kong stock exchange has adjusted its listing rules in the interim, including ones that support companies already listed in mainland China to offer shares in Hong Kong.

In addition to CATL, other companies listed in mainland China — Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Mabwell, Haitian Flavoring and Food, Fortior Tech and Sanhua Intelligent Controls — are “actively seeking Hong Kong listings,” said Tiger Brokers, an underwriter of many Chinese companies’ IPOs in the U.S. and Hong Kong.

“Chinese regulators are encouraging companies to list in Hong Kong to broaden financing channels and support the outbound merger and acquisition needs of Chinese enterprises,” the firm said.

Still not out of the woods

Back in the summer of 2021, the fallout over Chinese ride-hailing company Didi’s IPO in the U.S. prompted both countries’ regulators to scrutinize what was then a wave of Chinese companies listing in New York.

The major issues have since been resolved and Beijing has clarified rules for Chinese companies wanting to list outside the mainland. But the Trump administration indicated in its “America First Investment Policy” that it could increase scrutiny on U.S. capital flowing to China, on top of heightened tariffs.

The U.S. and China have yet to indicate when their two leaders might meet in an attempt to forge a deal. A surge of interest in AI and tech are also not yet enough to speed up a recovery in China’s economy.

“At this point in time, all we can see is the good indicators,” EY’s Chan said. But “there could be one single incident happening which could pretty much reverse the trend.”

“Things tend to have a pattern,” he said. “If things can keep on for three months, four months, it will likely continue for the rest of the year.”

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Treasury Secretary Bessent says market woes are more about tech stock sell-off than Trump’s tariffs

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters outside the West Wing after doing a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the sell-off in the stock market is due more to a sharp pullback in the biggest technology stocks instead of the protectionist policies coming from the Trump administration.

“I’m trying to be Secretary of Treasury, not a market commentator. What I would point out is that especially the Nasdaq peaked on DeepSeek day so that’s a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” Bessent said on Bloomberg TV Wednesday evening.

Bessent was referring to Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, whose new language models sparked a rout in U.S. technology stocks in late January. The emergence of DeepSeek’s highly competitive and potentially much cheaper models stoked doubts about the billions that the big U.S. tech companies are spending on AI.

The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks — Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia — started selling off drastically, pulling the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite into correction territory. The tech-heavy benchmark is down about 13% from its record high reached on December 16.

However, the secretary downplayed the impact from President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs, which caught many investors off guard and fueled fears of a re-acceleration in inflation, slower economic growth and even a recession. Many investors have blamed the tariff rollout for driving the S&P 500 briefly into correction territory from its record reached in late February. Wall Street defines a correction as a drop of 10% from a recent high.

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S&P 500, YTD

Trump signed an aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House Wednesday evening, slapping duties of at least 10% and even higher for some countries. The actions sparked a huge sell-off in the stock market overnight, with the S&P 500 futures declining nearly 4% and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 1,100 points. The losses will likely but the S&P 500 back into correction territory in Thursday’s session.

“It’s going to be fine if we put the best economic conditions in place,” Bessent said in a separate interview on Fox Wednesday evening. “If you go back and look, the stock market actually peaked on the [DeepSeek] Chinese AI announcement. So a lot of what we have seen has been just an idiosyncratic tech sell-off.”

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