Getting intervention right will take careful targeting

Economy | Mike Bastin

Not just for the first time this year but perhaps for the first time since the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007-8, the Chinese central government appears to have acted decisively to arrest what could be an unacceptably rapid economic slowdown.

Despite the considerable national and international media attention attracted by this recent intervention by Beijing, specific measures introduced recently appear to amount only to further tax cuts for small business, greater investment in rundown urban areas and an acceleration in the construction of a few railway lines.