BRIEFS: China to set up three more free trade zones after Shanghai

China will set up three more free trade zones, in Guangdong and Fujian provinces and Tianjin city, after it opened the first such area in Shanghai more than a year ago. The government will expand financial and trade trials that started in Shanghai’s free trade zone, according to a statement posted on the State Council’s website yesterday, citing a meeting at which Premier Li Keqiang presided. The Shanghai FTZ started in September 2013 as a testing ground for freeing interest rates and boosting the yuan’s role in global transactions. The zone has customs areas where goods stored are exempt from tariffs and value-added taxes. China will further reduce administrative approvals to ease companies’ burdens, the government also said after yesterday’s meeting.

PBOC economist says 2015 GDP growth to slow to 7.1pct

China is likely to see economic expansion next year decelerate to 7.1 percent as a slowdown in real estate investment continues. While growth may slow, the outlook for employment and inflation remains stable, and labor-market conditions won’t be a major concern, Ma Jun, chief economist of the People’s Bank of China’s research center, wrote in a working paper dated Dec. 12. The growth projection compares with the monetary authority’s forecast for 7.4 percent expansion this year, the slowest pace since 1990. “The downward pressure caused by the slowdown in real estate investment” will drag on any gains to growth from an acceleration in exports, Ma wrote. The world’s second-largest economy showed further signs of weakness last month with factory shutdowns exacerbating sluggish demand. Export growth is forecast to hit 6.9 percent next year, while consumer price index inflation will be 2.2 percent, according Ma’s report. Data last week showed exports rose 4.7 percent in November from a year earlier, while imports unexpectedly dropped amid weak demand.