Shangai, China: November 7, 2008 – IR Summary/NYT -  China’s claimed super growth is unexpectedly getting slower more quickly and sharply than anticipated. China's claim that it remained unaffected by the global slowdown is not correct.

“It’s tough to be optimistic,” said Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai. “The three engines of growth — exports, investment and consumption — have all slowed down.”

The signs are so troubling that last week Prime Minister Wen Jiabao warned that this year would be “the worst in recent years for our economic development.”

A series of government reports released over the last few weeks indicated that China’s export juggernaut was moderating. Real estate construction projects are being suspended. Consumer confidence is in decline. And many factories in southern China are closing, putting tens of thousands of migrant laborers out of work.

Some Chinese companies have even reported that Christmas orders — which were supposed to be placed in late summer or early fall — were down 20 percent this year, as big retailers and toy marketers grew gloomy about the holiday season.

Until recently, many economists had insisted that China was insulated from the global financial crisis rippling through the United States and Europe, and that the Chinese Communist Party had the tools to keep the economy chugging along. But newly released data suggests that nearly every sector of the economy is slowing and credit is tightening in a nation that has grown accustomed to sizzling hot growth. More