When it comes to Chinese (or any other in these centrally-planned, fabricated [7]days) economic data, there is GDP and then there is reality. And as the current premier [8]of China himself has admitted, there is no more accurate indicator of real, not bullshit "growth", than China's monthly power consumption. It is here that another rather massive divergence from China's official data (which has the world believe China GDP rose 7.5% in Q2) has appeared.
According to Economic Information Daily, power consumption in Shanghai and Jiangsu fell by more than 10% y/y in July, compared with double-digit growth a year ago, sources said. And it gets worse: other provinces, including Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou, reported a power consumption declines of up to 22 percentage points. One could almost say the Ukraine ministry of YouTube clips has been put in charge of China's GDP calculation.
As Market News adds, the National Energy Administration said power consumption rose 3.0% y/y in July, down from June's +5.9%, marking the lowest level of growth in 16 months.
[9]
Ouyang Changyu, a senior official with the China Electricity Council, said this indicates a weak industrial performance. Just in case it wasn't clear of course. He forecast power consumption to rise 3% to 4% in the third quarter, versus +5.3% in the first half, and that the government will step up policy support for economy in the second half of the year.
Which simply means that as we reported [10], the only reason for the recent surge in the Shanghai Composite in July was not bets on some renewed economic growth, which clearly does not exist, but because the PBOC joined its western central-planning peers in directly injecting outside money, read QE, in banks which is then used to levitate stocks higher, a la the S&P, in attempts to boost consumer confidence and "trickle down" the wealth of the 1%... which as the US has shown for the past 6 years, has failed miserably as the one and only backup strategy the central banks have left, after which only Bernanke's infamous monetary paradrop remains.
