It’s nice that China can still surprise us:

A double-digit rise in bank lending and a surge in total credit in the economy in the first three months of the year, together with forecast-busting import growth in March, have set analysts thinking the economy is expanding faster than expected and policymakers may have to act to restrain it. (Reuters, yesterday)

Every strategist around, it seems, was expecting an increase in the YoY quarterly growth rate after the recent credit surge. Of course… it didn’t happen. The Q1 GDP growth figure published today was 7.7 per cent above the same period in 2012, well short (relatively) of the 8 per cent that was expected and lower than the previous quarter’s YoY figure of 7.9 per cent.

Yet much of the reason for those expectations of credit tightening are still there: credit really surged, particularly in March.

via Seguir leyendo.