China's economy isn't on the verge of collapse, and markets are overlooking these indicators, China Beige Book says

Construction site, Shanghai, China
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  • Chinese consumer spending rebounded in certain sectors, Shehzad Qazi told Bloomberg TV.

  • But the managing director at China Beige Book added that property markets will remain a concern.

  • While Beijing's support is largely moderate, monetary policy is having an impact.

The idea that China is teetering towards catastrophe is contradicted by some key positives, Shehzad Qazi, managing director of China Beige Book, told Bloomberg TV.

"There's a dangerous consensus out there right now that China is on the verge of collapse. And the first thing that these data have made very clear is that's simply not the case," he said, noting that financial markets are overlooking several indicators.

For example, Chinese consumer spending has held steady throughout the summer in areas such as travel, leisure, and dining, Qazi added.

In addition to strength in the services sector, there have also been positive signs in the goods sector, with a rebound in car, furniture, appliance and luxury purchases.

In a separate interview with CNBC, he noted that recent monetary support is starting to have a largely unnoticed impact. This includes interest rate and deposit rate cuts.

"The most important thing that's happening now, of course, is that companies seem to finally be coming off the sidelines and looking like they're interested in borrowing. So we may potentially be seeing a turn there," Qazi said.

Such pockets of activity could be obscured by aggregate data, which have been pointing to continued weakness.

Overall spending pullbacks in the country contributed to cooldowns in a number of sectors, while also fueling deflation.

In fact, data out Thursday showed that manufacturing activity contracted for its sixth consecutive month in August, while service-sector activity was soft.

And while Qazi dismissed warnings about China's economy collapsing, he acknowledged it faces major headwinds.

"The big problem remains the property market where you have very serious amounts of weakness, and I think that is overshadowing some of the positive news in the economy right now," he told Bloomberg TV, adding that GDP growth will likely fall below 5%.

Qazi predicted that the real estate sector will remain a thorn for the Chinese economy in the longer term, as it undergoes a multi-year restructuring.

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