Economics
Let's Just Hope Shipping Isn't Telling the Real Story of China
- Shipping index falls to record at time when it should rally
- Coal, iron-ore imports in first reversal for more than decade
China's Economy: More Volatility Ahead in 2016?
This article is for subscribers only.
Investors betting that China’s near-insatiable appetite for industrial raw materials will drive global economic growth may want to skip the shipping news.
For the first time in at least a decade, combined seaborne imports of iron ore and coal -- commodities that helped fuel a manufacturing boom in the world’s second-largest economy -- are down from a year earlier. While demand next year may be a little better, slower-than-anticipated growth in 2015 has led to almost perpetual disappointment for shippers, after analysts’ predictions at the end of 2014 for a rebound proved wrong.