Cars driving the rebalancing of Chinese economy: IEA

11 December 2015 06:30 pm

AFP - Chinese consumers are getting behind the wheel more, spurring a heady increase in petrol demand, a sign that consumer spending is helping the slowing Chinese powerhouse achieve a soft landing, the IEA said yesterday.
“Upending year-earlier forecasts that Chinese gasoline demand would struggle in 2015, confirmed data for the first ten months of the year show growth of roughly 10.4 percent year-on-year” the International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil report.

Rapidly expanding gasoline demand, in contrast to weak gasoil/fuel oil, adds to “the increasingly compelling argument that the Chinese economy is undergoing a structural transformation - shifting from heavy manufacturing/exports towards a more domestically-focused economy,” it added.
One of the key issues facing the global economy in recent years has been how to ensure a smooth transition of the world’s second largest economy from an export powerhouse towards a more balanced model with higher domestic consumption.

Chinese growth hit a 24-year low of 7.3 percent in 2014 and Chinese officials have indicated the trajectory is downward.
This is of concern worldwide as China has accounted for a major share of global growth in recent years, thus its slowdown could erase expansion elsewhere.
Even though the 3.3 percent increase in auto sales from January to November is much lower than the 6.1 percent gain during the same period in 2014, according to data released Thursday by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, that still means an additional 21.8 million vehicles have hit the nation’s roads
Beijing reacted quickly to slumping sales earlier this year, cutting vehicle purchase taxes, resulting in record sales in November.