China’s Real Growth Could be Half of Reported

The official economic numbers that China released Monday are dramatically overestimating growth there, the author of “The Coming Collapse of China” told CNBC.

The government said the economy grew 7.5 percent year-over-year in the June quarter—marking the second- straight quarter of slowing growth.

“It’s not growing in the sevens. It’s probably growing in the threes and the fours,” Gordon Chang said in a “Squawk Box” interview. “When you look at electricity statistics, manufacturing surveys, price indices, trade data, all of this is looking very, very bad.”

China’s full-year growth was 7.8 percent in 2012, and the government targets growth of 7.5 percent for this year, which would be the slowest in about two decades.

Last week, the Chinese government reported dismal trade numbers for June—with both exports and imports contracting against forecasts for a much better performance compared to May.

via CNBC

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