Housing in China, Canada stops falling

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Monday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>And today we lead with news this is a week where we get a fuller set of global inflation data, including from the UK, Japan, Canada, South Africa, Malaysia, and <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/business/120754/new-inflation-figures-out-coming-week-are-likely-show-us-having-annual-rate"><strong>New Zealand</strong></a> on Thursday. We will also get Chinese GDP growth data for Q1-2023, industrial production and retail sales for March on Tuesday. And there is a dairy auction due on Wednesday.</p><p>But first up today, China's new home prices rose in March from February at the fastest pace in 21 months, <a href="http://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202304/t20230415_1938658.html" target="_blank"><strong>official data</strong></a> showed on Saturday, suggesting the market is out of the doldrums amid a flurry of support policies, but there is uncertainty on the strength of the momentum. New home prices in March edged up +0.5% month-on-month after a +0.3% rise in February, marking the fastest pace since June 2021 and the third consecutive monthly rise. But they are still lower on a year-on-year basis although only by -0.8%.</p><p>Internationally, it is becoming clear that China's Belt & Road Initiative - a giant infrastructure system tying global facilities to China - is in deep trouble. Chinese lending to these projects has been slashed and it has become “a road and belt to nowhere.” Over 60 developing countries today face a debt crisis brought on by overborrowing for these Chinese-promoted projects during the heady 2010s. In 2022, 60% of Chinese overseas loans went to distressed borrowers, up from 5% in 2010. <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Belt-and-Road/Belt-and-Roadblocks-More-of-China-s-borrowers-fall-into-distress" target="_blank"><strong>Many cannot repay</strong></a>.</p><p>Separately l