Economist, Centennial Asia Advisors

Nigel Chiang

Centennial Asia Advisors deliver timely and accurate economic and political analysis to investors, focused on anticipating key turning points that affect the client’s interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Clients include public agencies and central banks, as well as fund managers and investment banks. The company draws strength from its flexibility to tailor products to fit client’s specific interests. It provides detailed macro-economic forecasts, scenario analysis and timely assessments of how specific major economic and political developments may affect a client’s areas of interest. At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way.

Economist

Consumption/ US-China/ Covid-19/ Tech IPOs

China: Why We Are Below Consensus on GDP Growth in 2021

Centennial Asia Advisors

At Centennial Asia Advisors, we tell it like it is. We have no vested interests, no need for a China wall, and no reason to skew our outlook any other way. With over 30 years experience covering Asia’s political economy, you can be sure our conclusions and analyses are based on the unadulterated facts. Through years of fine-tuning our research methodologies, we deliver a quality of macroeconomic analysis few other houses can match.

Centennial Asia Advisors is an independent research and advisory firm that works with governments, multilateral institutions, financial firms and leading MNCs.

Economic Policy and Strategic Advisors

Macroeconomics

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<li>The impressive surge in new credit in January largely reflects seasonal demand and supply for loans: banks typically front-load their loans at the start of the year to win market share and households’ demand for currency usually rises ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year.</li>
<li>Looking past the flow figures, we note that outstanding credit growth continued to decelerate in January. Our measure of China’s credit impulse also went deeper into negative territory in January, further buttressing our view of slowing sequential growth in the first half of 2021.</li>
<li>Indeed, the People’s Bank of China signalled an incrementally more hawkish policy stance in its latest monetary policy report (MPR).</li>
<li>The long and short of it is that the policymakers are continuing to trade off some growth for risk prevention, but we could see peak credit normalisation soon which sets the stage for a slight pick-up in activity well into the second half of the year.</li>
</ul>


The impressive surge in new credit in January largely reflects seasonal demand and supply for loans: banks typically front-load their loans at the start of the year to win market share and households’ demand for currency usually rises ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year.
Looking past the flow figures, we note that outstanding credit growth continued to decelerate in January. Our measure of China’s credit impulse also went deeper into negative territory in January, further buttressing our view of slowing sequential growth in the first half of 2021.
Indeed, the People’s Bank of China signalled an incrementally more hawkish policy stance in its latest monetary policy report (MPR).
The long and short of it is that the policymakers are continuing to trade off some growth for risk prevention, but we could see peak credit normalisation soon which sets the stage for a slight pick-up in activity well into the second half of the year.


China: Credit Impulse Dips Again as Policymakers Show Increasing Risk Aversion