Chinese Economics Thread

[Lethe]

Just doing a little reading around the future Medog Hydropower Station on the Yarlung Zangpo river in Tibet. Annual electricity generation of up to 300 TWh has been cited, a figure that appears to come from PowerChina Chairman Yan Zhiyong back in 2020 and represents a little under triple the annual generation of Three Gorges Dam. Comparing, I notice that this exceeds the annual generation of

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hydroelectric power stations in the United States, which combined to generate

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. It also exceeds the total annual

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of the United Kingdom...

 

[tphuang]

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The Hainan free trade zone trial is quite interesting. They are already allowing visa free travel there from 59 different countries, which is attracting a lot of Russians.

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I wonder if Hainan will be set up as China's Medical tourism destination also.

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It's kind of interesting to see what's going on there, because they are kind of just allowing it to freely develop

 

[Wrought]

Port throughput is up pretty much everywhere except the US, which saw significant declines this year.

The Greater China Container Port Throughput Index slightly softened, experiencing a 0.4% month-over-month decline to 124.9 points. However, the year-over-year (y/y) perspective was more positive, with a 4.5% increase. The top five ports in Greater China saw average y/y growth of 7.2% in May. Shanghai particularly stood out, with volumes surging by an impressive 10.2%.

Notably, the major West Coast ports experienced significant declines. Throughput at Long Beach plummeted by 26.3% m/m and 8.2% y/y, while Los Angeles saw decreases of 15% from April and 4.8% y/y. Manzanillo in Mexico and Seattle also faced declines, with throughput slipping by 10.4% and 9.6% y/y, respectively. Vancouver, Canada and Mexico’s Lazaro Cardenas bucked the downward trend as y/y volume was better by 13.9% and 12.6%, respectively.

Europe also demonstrated resilience, where the Container Port Throughput Index saw a 3.7% increase April to May, coupled with a 5.3% rise y/y to reach 113.7 points. The rolling 12-month average growth rate improved to 5.4%, though still trailing behind the global average of 6.5%.

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