China’s slowdown spreads pain despite stimulus

From shopkeepers to shipbuilders, China’s deepest slowdown since the 2008 global crisis is inflicting more pain in some areas than still-robust headline growth of about 8 per cent might suggest. Higher spending by state industry and government-directed investment is pumping up the world’s second-largest economy, but that is masking the fact that the private sector is cutting jobs and scrambling to prop up plunging sales.

> Read more