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Speaker 1: Joining us now is James Meager, Bloomberg Economics Editor for

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Speaker 1: Greater China and Mongolia. Well, we had this line that

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Speaker 1: we've been pushing in Bloomberg's reporting, uh, that the top

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Speaker 1: leaders in China now focusing on boosting the economy in

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Speaker 1: a business friendly set of policies. James, what are some

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Speaker 1: of those business friendly leanings that we can look forward to.

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Speaker 1: So the first thing that he was announced on Friday

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Speaker 1: after the Central Economic Work Conference, which is meant to

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Speaker 1: set the set the economic policy for next year, is

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Speaker 1: that there'll be a sort of a pullback on the

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Speaker 1: the tech sort of crackdown that has happened over the

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Speaker 1: last two years. The government's looking to you know that

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Speaker 1: that that crackdown or not only on the tech sector

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Speaker 1: but also on things like online education, has you know,

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Speaker 1: decimated a lot of those companies, has knocked a lot

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Speaker 1: of money off their stock values, and the government's looking

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Speaker 1: to pull back on the on those regulations. Another thing

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Speaker 1: is there was also more support for the housing market UM,

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Speaker 1: so hopefully that will boost stocks of housing developers UM.

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Speaker 1: And also the government has said that they want to

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Speaker 1: increase consumption, private consumption, people going out shopping, buying things,

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Speaker 1: which hopefully, if that actually happens, would be would be

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Speaker 1: supportive for for a company than the consumer sector, So

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Speaker 1: less regulation or you know, less enforcement of regulation and

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Speaker 1: a more liberal business environment. I guess is that the

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Speaker 1: message that that that came out on Friday. You know,

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Speaker 1: the question is how that's going to happen, what's going

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Speaker 1: to be implemented, and you know how all these kinds

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Speaker 1: of things are still very much up in the It's

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Speaker 1: very unclear what specific measures will be taken. But at

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Speaker 1: least the discussion that happened, or that the announcements that

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Speaker 1: were made was that, you know, they want more investment.

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Speaker 1: They were more foreign investment, and they'll do what's necessary

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Speaker 1: to get that. You mentioned that they're hoping that they

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Speaker 1: can stimulate domestic consumption. Is there any evidence of people

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Speaker 1: feel bold enough to go out now with these surge

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Speaker 1: in cases? No, Um, it's the exact it, um. So

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Speaker 1: you know, whether that's successful, Whether that effort to stimulate

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Speaker 1: consumption is successful. No, When that happens or if that

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Speaker 1: happens really depends not on what the government wants, but

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Speaker 1: on what the virus wants. Right now. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: the COVID is going to make its way across the country. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're having in this massive exit wave in Beijing right now,

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Speaker 1: and other cities as well are facing that. Are they

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Speaker 1: going through that or just about to go through that?

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Speaker 1: And how long that takes, how many people die, how

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Speaker 1: many people get sick, What effect that has on people's

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Speaker 1: willingness to spend and go out shopping in the first

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Speaker 1: quarter or even the second quarter, depends on how long

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Speaker 1: that takes and how damaging that is. People in try

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Speaker 1: to have lost a lot of income over the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years, especially poorer people who work in services

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Speaker 1: industry things like that. The repeated lockdowns in two have

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Speaker 1: decimated restaurants, delivery, uh, you know, a lot of the

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Speaker 1: service industries travel for example. And those people haven't had

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Speaker 1: income for the last months at a time this year

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Speaker 1: and again in and then again this year. So where

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Speaker 1: are they going to be willing to go out and

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of money soon in three if they've

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Speaker 1: just had COVID, they're already down a lot of money

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Speaker 1: they didn't earn in two. It's unclear. You know, I

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Speaker 1: think it's unlikely. You've got to see this massive revenge

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Speaker 1: rebound and consumption. Maybe if the economy picks up next year,

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Speaker 1: you know later in the you might see something, but

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Speaker 1: it's going to take a while. And so if the

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Speaker 1: economy does pick up, we're we've got a lot of

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Speaker 1: support coming down the pipe. Here, a lot of very

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Speaker 1: positive words from the work conference. So do we have

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Speaker 1: an updated then more realistic growth outlook? Uh? You know,

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Speaker 1: the reporting that we had before the work conference was

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Speaker 1: they were looking about a five percent growth target. The

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Speaker 1: Law Street Journal also reported that that, you know, during

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Speaker 1: the work Work conference last week that they were looking

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Speaker 1: for a growth target of more than five percent. So

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Speaker 1: that seems to be about the ballpark of what the

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Speaker 1: government wants. As I said, you know, whether they can

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Speaker 1: achieve that or not, whether they can achieve real five

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Speaker 1: percent growth or not depends not on at this moment,

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Speaker 1: not on what they want, but on what the virus wants.

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Speaker 1: And that also depends on whether people respond, Like will

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Speaker 1: people go out and buy houses again? Will people go

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Speaker 1: out and shop again? That's not only that, not only that,

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Speaker 1: but you know you talked about a softer church on

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Speaker 1: the regulation. Will companies believe it, will they invest? That's right? Um?

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Speaker 1: You know, for me, once shame were and understand when

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Speaker 1: you for me twice share when me they've been saying

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Speaker 1: these kinds of things for a while now. They've been

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Speaker 1: saying they're open for business, they want more foreign investment,

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Speaker 1: and yet a lot of people aren't buying that. You know,

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Speaker 1: foreign foreign companies are very, very gunshot right now about China.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of opportunity. Obviously, you can make a

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Speaker 1: lot of money in this market, but you know, the

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Speaker 1: lack of visibility, the lack of reliability, the massive change

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Speaker 1: we've seen in the last couple of weeks is just

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Speaker 1: destroyed reputation for like reliable, stable governance that China has

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Speaker 1: had and built up over decades. You know, this huge

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Speaker 1: change on we're not going to cover zeros here to

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Speaker 1: state cover zeros the right policy in November and then

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Speaker 1: in December, we're just going to open the country up

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Speaker 1: and change everything and everyone's going to get coverd and

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Speaker 1: it's going to be incredibly insruptive. I mean, that's an

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Speaker 1: incredibly unreliable, unstable policy mechanism. How will companies invest into

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Speaker 1: that environment? Yeah, so you've got to get confidence back

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Speaker 1: in the policy making. It takes some time. James, Thanks

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Speaker 1: very much for being with us. James Meager, Bloomberg Economics

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Speaker 1: Editor for Greater China and Mongolia,