I am in the US on a speaking tour at the moment so I have not had a lot of time for blogging, but I thought that I just wanted to share one alarming macroeconomic number with my readers – the sharp drop in Chinese nominal GDP growth.

Yesterday we got the the Q3 numbers and as the graph shows the sharp slowdown in Chinese NGDP, which started in early 2013 continues. A similar trend by the way is visible in Chinese money supply data.

This is of course very clearly shows just how much Chinese monetary conditions have tightened over the past 2 years and this is of course also the main reason for the sell-off global commodity prices and in the Emerging Markets in the same period.

One thing in the number, which is interesting is that Chinese real GDP growth is now outpacing nominal GDP growth. As a consequence the Chinese GDP deflator has turned negative. Said in another way – China has deflation and in fact the pace of deflation is accelerating.

PBoC – it is time to let the Renminbi float

Even though the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has devalued the Renminbi slightly against the dollar the PBoC still manages the Chinese currency tightly against the US dollar. As a consequence the PBoC continues to import the tightening of monetary condition from the US on the back of the sharp appreciation of the dollar over the past year or so.

However, China does not need monetary tightening. The sharp decline NGDP growth rather shows that China need monetary easing!

So unless Fed Chair Janet Yellen changes her mind and ease US monetary policy the PBoC will have to devalue the Renminbi again and potentially completely decouple from the dollar and letting the Renminbi float freely.

To me it is only a matter of time before we get another Chinese devaluation and that very well could spell the end to the ‘dollar bloc’ as we know and that certainly should be welcome. On the other hand if the PBoC does not realize the need to de-couple the Renminbi from the dollar then it is very likely that Chinese growth will slump further and it will then only be an question of time before Chinese goes into recession.

This topic will be central to my lecture at the Dallas Fed on Thursday. See here.

PS My US trip so far has been very inspiring and I hope in the coming weeks to share some of my impressions.

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If you want to hear me speak about these topics or other related topics don’t hesitate to contact my speaker agency Specialist Speakers – e-mail: daniel@specialistspeakers.com or roz@specialistspeakers.com.