Commentary
Weeks ago China released a bunch of economic figures for June and the second quarter. Despite beating expectations, most series continue to show a downtrend after the unusual rebound due to exceptionally low base effect in the first quarter. While countries of BRICS belong to the same class, India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa had first-quarter GDP growth rates at only 1.64 percent, 0.95 percent, –0.7 percent, and –3.2 percent respectively. Yet China’s was an unbelievably high 18.3 percent. It was funny that none of the stock markets reacted to that.
