00:00At first glance, your take, Jaloo.
00:03Well, it's a surprise on the downside, to be honest, on all the prints.
00:07But we need to take things with context.
00:11Basically, with a Middle East conflict going on, that probably affect the economies in Asia.
00:18China probably more resilient than others, but no exception in terms of taking the hit.
00:230.2% for retail sales.
00:26I'm trying to see when the last time we saw a number of so small.
00:30What does it tell you about the domestic side of things and the demand picture right now?
00:33I think clearly everyone is talking about the K-shaped recovery in the sense that the consumption is still on
00:40the soft side.
00:42And over the past several years, it's pretty clear Chinese authorities don't believe in handouts of money.
00:50They probably are looking for a more sustainable recovery, which will rely on the overall pickup of the economic activities.
01:00So I think right now something is still in the brew.
01:05For example, the President Trump visit, basically the Ministry of Commerce came out and said that it's possible both sides
01:15might reduce levies on certain products.
01:18So if that materialized together with some rerouting of the export orders back to China, that could support job creation
01:27and probably support the consumption.
01:33When it comes to trade, Zeng Liu, when the exports numbers came out, I think it was a couple of
01:38weeks ago, it showed that AI boom.
01:41So the worries are the transmission into the consumption side is coming quite slow, quite challenged.
01:47How do you see that playing out?
01:50Right, so we still see that China actually excelled in exporting, say, EV cars, as well as some of the
01:58semiconductor.
01:59I think for that, the transmission to consumption may not be as forceful as people would like to see.
02:07Probably if we stay monitoring the data for a little bit longer, if there's evidence of certain kind of consumer
02:17goods rerouting back to China for the production,
02:21that would be more direct support for jobs and essentially the consumption.
02:25So if we stay monitoring the data for a little bit more, if we stay monitoring the data for a
02:26little bit more,
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