Analysis-With manufacturing loans rising, can China avoid a new supply glut?
China's leaders, determined to upgrade manufacturing, are steering money toward makers of high-tech products, from semiconductors to EVs, raising fears that overcapacity will fuel a new wave of cheap exports. Lending data from China's central bank offers a glimpse of government priorities: as of the end of September, outstanding loans to the troubled property sector fell 0.2% year-on-year but lending to the manufacturing sector jumped 38.2%. Economists caution that this wave of investment differs in key respects from an earlier capital investment surge that, among other effects, in...