JEWELRY FEVER: Consumers look at jewelry at the 2011 China International Jewelry Fair held on November 23-27 in Beijing. More than 1,200 companies from 22 countries and regions brought their latest products to the show (LUO WEI)

Numbers of the Week

21.77 billion yuan

China's fixed-asset investments in the telecom sector totaled 21.77 billion yuan ($3.43 billion) in October, down 42.89 percent from the previous month, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

20.33 billion yuan

China's lottery sales totaled 20.33 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) in October, growing 35.6 percent year on year. The figure brought the amount in the first 10 months to 178.1 billion yuan ($28.05 billion), up 33.9 percent, said the Ministry of Finance.

TO THE POINT: The World Bank forecasts a rosy prospect for the Chinese economy, despite a moderate slowdown in growth. The real estate market continues to cool, with an increasing number of cities experiencing price declines. China's state-owned enterprises face a bumpy road ahead, with their profits shrinking quickly. The shipping giant COSCO is swimming in red ink due to tepid demands and overcapacity. China is expected to replace the United States as the world's top e-commerce market by 2015.

World Bank Optimistic

The Chinese economy is heading for a soft landing, though downside risks are still simmering, according to a recent report of the World Bank.

Bert Hofman, the bank's chief economist for East Asia and Pacific, said the leading indicators projected further softening for China in the coming six to 12 months, but they do not signal an immediate hard landing.

Nevertheless, the growth is expected to slow as external demand weakens and China pushes its own structural adjustment towards economic growth driven more by domestic demand.

The World Bank expected the Chinese economy to grow 9.1 percent in 2011 and 8.4 percent in 2012.

"While the central projection is for a gradual deceleration of growth, the risks are tilted to the downside. The global outlook has become increasingly precarious as advanced economies growth turned more sluggish than previously anticipated and uncertainties continued to loom over the euro area sovereign debt," the report said.

Hofman said he saw the risks in China in the banking system and the property market, but nevertheless the Chinese authorities were aware of the risks and that they were under control.

The process of structural adjustment is likely to reduce headline growth over the medium term, but will place the country's longer-term prospects on a more solid footing, he said, adding that experiences of other countries show it is still possible for China to achieve multiple years of high growth going ahead at the current stage.

As demand weakens in developed countries, China's share in world imports has grown, making it an increasingly important source of global demand. A shift to more consumer goods imports in China is also benefiting the region's manufacturing exporters, said the report.

Housing Downturn

House price declines are spreading throughout China as gloom takes hold in the real estate markets.

In October, 34 out of 70 monitored major cities reported month-on-month drops in prices of new commercial residences, up from 17 in September, said the National Bureau of Statistics. Meanwhile, only 16 cities experienced price increases, compared with 24 in the previous month. Prices stayed unchanged in 20 cities.

As for second-hand homes, prices fell in 38 cities in October, increasing from 24 in September. Only 13 cities saw their prices head north.

Policymakers have recently reiterated their firm commitment to letting air out of the price bubble. Property developers also appear more willing to lower prices this year as they look to withdraw as much cash as possible from a cooling market and lower housing inventories that are reaching record levels in some cities.

China Vanke Co. Ltd., China's largest developer by market value, reported sales of 10.34 billion yuan ($1.63 billion) in October, plunging 33.3 percent from a year ago.

Liu Yuanchun, Associate Dean of the School of Economics at the Renmin University of China, expected the country's house prices to fall by less than 25 percent in 2012.

"Despite the price drops, the market remains far from a collapse given its importance for local governments and the Chinese economy," he said.

SOEs Slacken

China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are losing some shine amid a slowing economy.

In the first 10 months of 2011, SOEs raked in a combined profit of 1.87 trillion yuan ($294.54 billion), representing an increase of 16 percent year on year, said the Ministry of Finance. Of this total, central SOEs earned 1.27 trillion yuan ($199.2 billion), with the remainder going to local ones.

But in October alone, SOEs' profits dropped 12.4 percent from September, the biggest month-on-month decrease so far this year. This also marked the fourth straight month of slowdowns.

SOEs' revenues totaled 30.15 trillion yuan ($4.75 trillion) from January to October, climbing 23.9 percent from a year ago. But the figure for October went down 4.4 percent from September.

The SOEs also reported a fall in profitability as their profit-to-sales ratio came in at 4.7 percent, 0.4 percentage points lower than the same period last year. The worst performers in October were steel, petrochemical, tobacco, nonferrous metals and petroleum industries, which experienced a slump in profits.

"The state firms are facing some headwinds due to cost inflation and withering overseas markets," said Liu Zhiyi, an analyst with the Beijing-based China Securities Co. Ltd. "However, they still boast stronger profitability than private firms thanks to government's support and easier access to financing."