Tag: Small Business

What Hefei, China’s EV City, Says About the State of the Economy

Media Library

Ultramodern factories churn out electric cars and solar panels in Hefei, an industrial center in the heart of central China. Broad avenues link office towers and landscaped parks. Subway lines open at a brisk pace. Yet at Hefei’s market for construction materials, which fills 10 city blocks, local merchants are gloomy. Wu Junlin, a vendor of doors, has closed two of his three stores and laid off all but one of his dozen employees. “I have been doing this for 20 years — after all these years, this year is…

China’s Economic Pain is a Test of Xi’s Fixation With Control

Media Library

In Xi Jinping’s strategy for securing China’s rise, the Communist Party keeps a firm grip on the economy, steering it out of an old era dependent on real estate and smokestack industries to a new one driven by innovation and consumer spending. But he may have to relinquish some of that control, as that strategy comes under pressure. Consumers are gloomy. Private investment is sluggish. A big property firm is near collapse. Local governments face crippling debt. Youth unemployment has continued to rise. The economic setbacks are eroding Mr. Xi’s…

She Rose From Poverty as China Prospered. Then It Made Her Poor Again.

Media Library

Two years ago, as she walked through a hospital hallway in handcuffs and shackles to get tested for Covid, Sun Junli felt ashamed and defeated. At 45, she had come a long way. The poor village girl in northwestern China had become a successful businesswoman. Then she was crushed. In 2018, state-owned banks abruptly stopped lending to her business, a chain of cafe restaurants, and the pandemic destroyed her cash flow. By May 2021, Ms. Sun had lost her restaurants, and she was serving 16 days in detention for owing…

China’s Property Crisis Is Rippling Through the Economy

Media Library

Once a beneficiary of China’s property boom, Lan Mingqiang is now an unwitting casualty of its unraveling. The financial troubles at one real estate company, Country Garden, have left him unable to pay the school fees for his son, who is starting seventh grade. Country Garden owes $21,000 to his company, which makes fences and billboards on construction sites. Now, with Country Garden days away from a default, this money is more out of reach than ever. “Nowadays, real estate is hard,” Mr. Lan said. He recently gave up on…

As Germany’s Business Model Wobbles, Firms Reassess Reliance on China

Media Library

Amid the ruins of a city ravaged by World War II, Karl Haeusgen’s grandfather invented a hydraulic pump he was so proud of that he founded a company to sell it. Back then, there were no revenue projections or five-year growth strategies. The plan was survival: “It was just about grabbing chances,” Mr. Haeusgen said. Seven decades and three generations later the family business, Hawe Hydraulics, ships some 2,500 parts around the globe. Instead of scrambling for sales, though, Mr. Haeusgen must parse the geopolitics of an ever more polarized world. “A third of…

Zero-Covid Policy Shakes Hong Kong’s Economy and Its ‘Soul’

Chin@Strategy

HONG KONG — Perry Lam felt confident that his business had weathered the worst of the pandemic. Several rounds of bar closures in Hong Kong had dimmed the city’s vibrant nightlife, threatening to destroy his brewery. But things seemed better late last year. After the government’s relentless effort to stamp out the virus, there were no local infections, bars began ordering kegs of his lager again and money was coming in. “You saw the silver lining,” said Mr. Lam, 34. That changed this month when Omicron started spreading, and officials…