China to Underscore Global Economic Quandary
Its GDP figure on Friday will be a reminder to finance officials meeting in Washington about a worldwide slowdown and central bank dilemma.
Chinese consumers are going to have to pick up some slack.
Photographer: Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images
Central bank governors and finance ministers from around the globe will be in the thick of their discussions at this year’s annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington when China releases its highly anticipated third-quarter growth number on Friday. The official estimate is likely to come in at the low end of the government’s target range of 6% to 6.5% for 2019, with a growing risk of falling short of this range.
The release will add to two concerns that will most likely underlie much of the discussions at the meetings, both in public and especially behind closed doors: the deepening and broadening global economic weakness and the risk of increasingly ineffective, if not counter-productive, monetary policy stimulus by the world’s most powerful and systemically important central banks.