China Tells

Is there a bubble in China’s construction sector? Is the property price over stretched in China? The answer seems to be certain. A lot of people view China’s property sector as a time bomb that will explode sooner or later (Click here for an interview with Jim Chanos, who is very bearish on China). However, the bears have been repeatedly wrong in the past few years. The above chart shows that since 2002, China’s property and construction loans have been above 40% on average. To be fair, other emerging economies also went through similar period during their booming days. However, it seems that such fast expansion never sustained more than 10 years. Whether China can break this historical pattern remains to be seen.

中国的房地产有泡沫么？这个问题似乎没有什么争议。但是有争议的是，泡沫会不会破裂，什么时候崩盘？在这个问题上仁者见仁，各派都有不同见解。有一个值得一提的事实是，那些看空中国的看客们，到现在似乎还没有被证明是正确的。在过去的10年中，一切看衰中国的言论都被事实击得粉碎。当然，衰客也有他们自己的理由。比如以上图表显示，中国的建筑行业贷款量占到GDP的40%强，并且从02年持续至今达到8年之久。在历史上，还没有一个国家可以维持如此高的贷款量超过10年。中国会是个例外么？看客们似乎又有话要说了。