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Good morning.

From the Newsroom of the Financial Times, Today is Thursday March 7th and this is your FTE news briefing.

Today, new research shows China's economy is 12% smaller than official figures say it is.

U.S. financial regulators move to relax Obama-era financial rules,

and wealthy investors looking to settle in the UK

will face stricter regulations if they want a so-called golden visa.

Then the F.T.'s Amy Williams calls in from Montreal to explain the scandal plaguing

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I'm Eric Krupky and here's the news you need to start your day.

According to new research, China's economy is around 12% smaller than official figures indicate, and its real growth has been overstated by

around 2 percentage points annually in recent years.

The research was published by the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

The findings add to concerns that China's current slowdown is more severe than the government

has acknowledged.

Even based on official data, China's economy grew at 6.6% last year.

That's its lowest pace since 1990.

The Chinese government's emphasis on numerical targets

has made growth and gross domestic product

a politically sensitive figure. The Communist Party

evaluates local government's performance based largely on growth in their respective

regions. The authors of this new research believe that since local authorities are rewarded for meeting growth targets, they have an incentive to skew their statistics.

...