The government has targeted growth of 6% or above this year, and also wants to add 11 million new jobs.īut anything that threatens its fragile economic recovery could pose risks to those ambitions – something authorities have noted. China needs to grow a bit less than 5% each year through the next decade to hit President Xi Jinping’s goal to double GDP by 2035. And analysts warn that as smaller businesses weigh whether to cut costs or scale down, they could start shedding workers. While that’s somewhat distorted, given the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown in 2020, it’s still the fastest surge since October 2017.Įxpensive construction projects are already pushing some Chinese companies to suspend work, according to recent survey data. China’s producer price index, which measures the change in costs that manufacturers pay for materials, rose 6.8% in April from a year earlier. President Joe Biden proposed in March a roughly $2 trillion infrastructure plan aimed at helping the nation recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and reshaping the US economy to counter China’s rise.īut China has reasons to worry about the skyrocketing costs, too. And a popular idiom for defenseless – “without an inch of steel in hand” – is now being used much more literally on social media to describe desperate buyers.Ĭonstruction is also part of the economic recovery in the US, and may accelerate soon. The situation with steel has become so acute that China’s leaders are warning of damage to the economy. The cost of everything needed for China’s post-pandemic infrastructure boom, from steel and coal to glass and cement, is soaring. That’s pushing prices through the roof – and is threatening Beijing’s recovery plans. The business of China: Soaring metal prices spell trouble for China’s recoveryĬhina and the United States are in a race for scarce commodities to rebuild their economies after the pandemic. That has led to a scramble to get vaccinated among its population, suggesting that the best solution to vaccine hesitancy may be the one governments want least.Ī ship unloading iron ore imported from Australia in Taicang Port in eastern China. Taiwan, which has particularly low rates of both Covid-19 transmission and vaccination take up, placed its capital Taipei under partial lockdown this week, after hundreds of new local cases were detected. The fear factor isn’t just at work in China. The impact of the new outbreaks has also been felt nationwide: on Friday alone, 14 million people were vaccinated across China, days after the news broke of cases in Anhui and Liaoning.Īnd in Beijing, almost 80% of those age 18 and over have now received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the state-run Global Times said this week, bringing the capital close to the coveted goal of achieving herd immunity. In Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, there have been more than 100,000 vaccinations a day since May 12, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. ![]() The province’s average daily vaccination was more than 840,000 in the past week. ![]() While there has been a concerted push for vaccines by the central government and local authorities, that campaign has been helped recently by another factor – fear.Īnhui and Liaoning provinces have both seen a large spike in vaccinations over the past two weeks, following small local outbreaks of Covid-19 – 17 and 25 cases, respectively.īut that was all it took for Anhui to inoculate more than 1.1 million people in a day on May 16. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images AsiaPac/Getty Images Workers sort vials of the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine.
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