What lies ahead

By Andrew Moody (China Daily) Updated: 2013-01-07 10:04

Top: Goolam Ballim, group chief economist of Standard Bank; Above: Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for the London-based research group Capital Economics. Photos Provided to China Daily

Goolam Ballim, group chief economist of Africa's largest bank, Standard Bank, in Johannesburg, says many African nations now see China's growth figure as a key economic indicator since it could have a major bearing on their economic fortunes.

"China is front and center of Africa's external risks. If China's growth was to slow to 6 percent, which would be nominally respectable, it would be the equivalent of spawning a commodities recession on the continent," he says.

"This would stymie Africa's exports with further consequent impact on local currencies in turn leading to inflation that would erode real incomes and encourage monetary policy tightening. In short, you can clearly see there is a transmission mechanism where any movement in China's growth rate could be quite meaningful to Africa."

The US economy remains one many analysts remain optimistic about.

Steve Brice, chief investment strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, believes the US could actually be at the vanguard of something of a global recovery in 2013.

"The fiscal uncertainty looks as though it is going to lead to weak first-quarter figures but once that is out of the way, I think the underlying economy still has quite strong momentum and that GDP growth could average 3 percent in the second half."

The optimism about the US does not extend to Rieschel at Qiming Venture Partners. He believes the world's largest economy is precariously placed and could easily slide into recession again, which would be hammer blow to China and the rest of the world.

"If the US economy just shows level growth in the first quarter and I wouldn't be surprised if it falls into recession in the second quarter, which would weaken the already difficult situation in Europe and be bad for China's exports also," he says.

Europe and the unresolved euro crisis is the big specter hanging over the world economy, made more difficult this year by everyone awaiting the outcome of the German elections.

Williams at Capital Economics believes the economies of the eurozone countries will contract by 2.5 percent in 2013.

"The end to this problem will only come when the single currency area decides to break apart. That will help to relieve some of the stress and will allow their economies to become more competitive," he says.

"It is still the big shadow hanging over the world and if we are looking for where things could go badly wrong over the next year, it is the eurozone."

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