China’s economic growth expected to slow next year amid trade strife: OECD

China’s economy is projected to grow by 4.3 per cent next year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said this week as it trimmed a 10th of a percentage point off its previous forecast in the light of ongoing world trade strife.

“Substantial barriers to trade” coupled with “diminishing confidence and heightened policy uncertainty” were putting downward pressure on economic growth rates around the world this year and next, the Paris-headquartered world trade advocacy group said.

It said the global slowing trend would be “most concentrated” in China, Canada, Mexico and the United States.

This week’s outlook report from the 38-member OECD follows US President Donald Trump’s blast of double-digit tariff increases on imports from multiple countries this year. Many of the countries targeted are in Asia, with China singled out for the largest increases.

The OECD outlook said Chinese exports would be “curbed by the newly imposed tariffs”, while imports would fall as production was increasingly localised.

“The tariffs will disproportionately affect private companies, including foreign ones, as they are the major exporters,” the report said. The US absorbed 13.5 per cent of direct Chinese merchandise exports last year.