China’s heatwave, power crunch adds to economic woes, inflation concerns even with rain set to fall

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The extreme heatwave and power crunch along the Yangtze River Basin has added to China’s economic woes and inflation concerns, and further threatened the country’s status as the so-called world’s factory, even though the situation is expected to ease as rainfall kicks in next week, analysts and industry insiders said.

This year’s power crisis – centred in Sichuan province – has been mainly caused by a lack of water flowing into hydropower facilities and soaring power demands from households.