China’s economic bright spots provide a warning
What a visit to an optimistic port reveals
![A worker at a workshop in Ningbo checks the quality of electric irons to be exported to America](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240316_FNP006.jpg)
If America’s economy begins to deteriorate, people in Ningbo will be among the first to know. The eastern Chinese port, home to 9.6m residents, contains a sprawling industrial district. Its goods are prepared for export, and are shipped abroad via a deepwater harbour, which is one of the world’s busiest. The coast of Zhejiang province is dotted with similar entrepôts, where thousands of mostly family-owned firms have built up a diverse manufacturing base over the past 40 years. They make everything from textiles and car parts to electronics and machine components.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “God bless America”
Finance & economics March 16th 2024
- Is the bull market about to turn into a bubble?
- China’s economic bright spots provide a warning
- China is churning out solar panels—and upsetting sand markets
- Saudi Arabia’s investment fund has been set an impossible task
- The private-equity industry has a cash problem
- Russia’s economy once again defies the doomsayers
- How NIMBYs increase carbon emissions
More from Finance & economics
![Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP002.jpg)
Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral
Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries
![People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP502.jpg)
Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?
In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time
![illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FND001.jpg)
Why you should repay your mortgage early
For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans
How AI will divide the best from the rest
Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides
The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research
Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful
Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending
DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit