While the rest of the world anxiously seeks the green shoots of recovery, China’s business landscape is already looking thickly forested with the essentials of a thriving industrial economy.

A construction site in Shanghai. Economists have warned of new bubbles in the property and stock markets

Domestic production and consumption of diesel, steel, plastics, chemicals and white goods had all returned to, if not surpassed, the peak levels of the boom times of early 2008 by June this year.