Omicron is dealing a big blow to China’s economy

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Omicron is dealing a big blow to China’s economy
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For a timely take, analysts are turning to unconventional indicators

OMICRON MOVES fast. That makes it difficult to contain—even for China, which tries to stomp promptly on any outbreak. A cluster of infections in Shanghai, for example, has shattered the city’s reputation for deft handling of the pandemic, forcing the government to impose a staggered lockdown, of uncertain duration, for which it seems surprisingly ill prepared.

For a more timely take on China’s fast-deteriorating economy, some analysts are turning to less conventional indicators. For example, Baidu, a popular search engine and mapping tool, provides a daily mobility index, based on tracking the movement of smartphones. Over the seven days to April 3rd, this index was more than 48% below its level a year ago.

The two numbers that worry Mr Lu the most track the economy’s distribution system, specifically couriers and lorries. In the week ending April 1st, an index of express deliveries by courier companies was nearly 27% below its level at a similar point last year. Over the same period, an index of road freight compiled by Wind, a data provider, shows a fall of 12.8%. The decline looks especially stark because this indicator was increasing by more than 7% at the end of last year.

China’s high-frequency indicators proved their worth in the spring of 2020, during the fog of the early pandemic. Although everyone knew the economy would suffer, forecasters were at first timid in cutting their growth forecasts. No one knew exactly how the economy would react or what the NBS would be prepared to report. With the accumulation of evidence from high-frequency data, forecasters were eventually brave enough to predict negative growth for the first quarter of 2020.

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