Ep 34 - Beijing's curious plan to stimulate services consumption with more investment

The quest to understand Beijing's views on consumer spending continues. The latest: On August 13, China's finance ministry (MoF) said it would bring down borrowing costs for service sector firms by providing them with rebates on their interest payments.Curiously, authorities framed the measure – which is clearly designed to increase investment – as being an effort to boost consumption.In this podcast, Trivium Co-founder Andrew Polk and Dinny McMahon, Head of Markets Research, discuss the idiosyncrasies of China's consumption policies.They discuss:Why Beijing sees the path toward greater consumption as reliant on more investmentWhy consumption support efforts are increasingly pivoting toward servicesAnd why China's authorities have opted to dispense rebates on interest payments, rather than just cut interest rates outright