1. Investment of 100 million US dollars, Alibaba to build western base in Chengdu
On June 29th, the signing ceremony of the western base project of Alibaba Group was held in Chengdu High-tech Zone. It is learnt that Alibaba Group is to invest 100 million US dollars in Chengdu to build the “Alibaba Western Base”, whose business range will cover all related businesses conducted by the Group’s subsidiaries, with such functions as research, calling, background operation and maintenance, management and settlement, disaster recovery and training, etc. The settlement of the Chengdu Operation Service Center subordinated to the Alibaba Group was also signed at the occasion.

2. Total investment of 800 million yuan, China Plastic City Chengdu project settled in Xindu
The management committee of China Plastic City based in Yuyao city of Zhejiang province recently signed an agreement with Xindu district, to formally settle the China Plastic City Chengdu project in the district. According to the introduction, the project has a total investment of 800 million yuan, and after the first-phase put in operation, the annual tax revenue can reach 100 million yuan averagely, capable of providing over 3,000 job positions.

3. Important projects of 10.1 billion of Jinniu district signed collectively
Recently, Jinniu district held an signing ceremony for important projects, during which 4 companies including RedStar Furniture and Zhongtie Wuju signed with Jnniu district a “big bill” worth 10.1 billion yuan, in which the RedStar-Shanghai Mall project of investment of 3 billion yuan will start construction on August 8th, which also contains the first five-star hotel in the northern part of Chengdu.
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1. Qionglai and French Glon Group signed strategic agreement
On April 23rd, Europe’s biggest meat processing company – Group Glon of France and Qionglai city formally concluded the strategic cooperative partnership. According to the agreement, the 5 year-time from May 1st of this year to May 5th of 2014 is the first phase of cooperation, and the Group Glon will build in Qionglai a world-leading boar breeding farm and an animal pharmaceutical factory, and in the meanwhile provide for local agricultural companies such technical supports as agro-technical personnel training, renewing of agricultural equipment and building of agricultural technical center, helping local agricultural products meet the international standard.

2. Sichuan’s tourist market fully embraces visitors
It is reported that up to now, except for several severely-hit disaster areas, Sichuan province’s tourist market has entirely opened to visitors. The province’s total tourist revenue in 2008 has achieved 109.152 billion yuan, dropping merely 10.3% compared with the year of 2007. During January to March of this year, the tourism around Sichuan and within Sichuan has recovered rapidly, and the inbound tourist market gradually warmed up, generating total revenue of 33.79 billion yuan, up 12% year-on-year. The expected target for 2009 is to restore itself to the pre-earthquake level, with the gross annual income attaining 120 billion yuan

3. Investing 500 million yuan, West China’s biggest steel marketing center broke earth
On April 27th, the biggest steel marketing center in the western region – Longgang Steel Marketing Center was put into construction in the Longtan Industrial Park of Chenghua district. The project is planned to have a construction area of around 47,000 square meters, and total investment of more than 500 million yuan, and is estimated to be finished in 2010. Up to now, Chenghua district has 57 projects newly commenced since this year, and 150 under construction, having completed fixed asset investment of 5.06 billion yuan.

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One of the interesting, and perhaps most debatable, aspects watching the “Road to Recovery” is the fact that so much can be made from a few statistical measures that are typically offered up without much context.

It is a situation that lead me to write a piece called Are Trade Statistics the Best Measure for Success? a couple years ago, and has kept me largely restrained in believing that we are near a bottom, or that we know what a “bottom” is.

Why I say that is simple. That high line numbers, the numbers reported and often quoted, are not necessarily the best measure of what is going on, nor do they tell the real story.

That with regional clusters (I say 5.. others slice up to 8), China is actually a to get that, one needs to properly dig down into China’s various regions and industries, and take the time to work out what is really going on.

In the first graph above, I have constructed a simple chart that shows the last year of export growth data by province.  The X axis is essentially a percentage gain/ loss on the previous year with the Y axis being the time period (Period 1 is March 2008 and Period 12 is March 2009).

To further highlight the fact that there are some really interesting dynamics occurring, and to ensure that the chart did not look like a plate fo spaghetti, I simply removed any areas whose export from period 1 - 8 had grown slower than the national average and then remove any areas where their growth was faster than the national average from periods 9-12.

Resulting in a very interesting chart that highlights the economic impacts on some of China’s fastest growing regions where industries were not quite as solid (Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, Hunan, and Guanxi) with a couple of interesting results from Jiangsu and Chongqing.

Going down another layer to break these areas apart even further through showed just how clustered the regions themselves are.

The Yantgze Delta Markets of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui all stuck together falling  20% while the SEZs in Shenzhen, Shantou, and Zhuhai all took similar dives (Xiamen - center of Dell - fared much better).. and while Chongqing and Yunnan took similar dives, Sichuan saw the greatest provincial gain (surely in part due to recent attraction of FDI).

Which leads me back to the original point I was looking to make.  That while “China’s” economy has certainly grown on the whole over the last 20 years, and it has certainly felt the impact of the recent economic turmoil, its economy is not a single economy, nor will it act as a single unit.

Each slice that you take, and this chart will show you 40 more angles of the same figures, will offer a different view of impact on the China’s export economy, and that regardless of whether or not China’s economy has decoupled itself from the export economy.. it is clear that some areas within China are still very tied to it.

1. Ge Honglin met IBM’s Great China President Zhou Weikun and his party
IBM reintegrated the 9 provinces and 1 city in Southwest and Northwest regions, and put forward the “Grand West Zone” strategic layout, making Chengdu its west zone headquarters. On April 15th, while meeting with Ge Honglin, vice secretary of CPC Chengdu Municipal Committee and mayor, Zhou Weikun, President of IBM Great China, expressed that IBM will invest more resources into Chengdu, continue deepening cooperation, and strengthen the regional radiation force of its western headquarters.

2. Canadian Trade Office in Chengdu to be opened before July 1st
Having just finished his visit to Chengdu, Mr. Stockwell Day, Canadian Minister of International Trade, formally announced the start-up of two newly-established trade offices in Chengdu and Shenzhen, in order to help Canadian companies to enter into China, the fastest growing economic body of the world, learnt the journalist on April 15th from the Canadian Embassy in China. The two offices will be opened before July 1st.

3. Macao to donate 179.6 million yuan to rebuild Taoist temple of Qingcheng Mount
In order to restore as quickly as possible the previous simple and beautiful scenery of the ancient architectural complex at the Mount Qingcheng scenic spot which was damaged during the great earthquake of “May 12th”, Macao Foundation recently decided to donate 179.6 million yuan to support the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the ancient buildings on the Mount Qingcheng, revealed the Ethnic and Religious Affaires Bureau of Chengdu on April 15th.
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For those looking for good news on China’s property market, I am not sure if the recent JLL Property Market Monitor will be the document you were hoping for, but Steven McCrord’s Page 1 was sobering for me:

Total prime retail stock in 21 major Chinese cities will grow at a CAGR of 20.2% through the next three years, while retail sales are only projected to grow at 9.2%. The divergence between stock growth and retail sales growth will drive up the national vacancy rate from 7.2% at end 2008 to a projected 13.9% at the end of 2011.

A projection that has plenty of support in the 3 page document that highlights problems in the residential, commercial, and retail sectors (the one bright spot was reserved for infrastructure).

Download the full report here