China’s manufacturing output and retail sales growth in May fell short of expectations. According to official statistics released on Thursday, China’s industrial output climbed 3.5% in May from the same month a year earlier.
This came in slightly below expectations, as slowing domestic and international demand adds pressure on officials to shore up a fragile economic recovery.
The economic growth rate in May was the lowest since February.
From 5.6% in April, analysts surveyed by Reuters predicted production growth to slow to 3.6% in the following month.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, annual growth in retail sales slowed to 12.7% in May from the 18.4% gain in April. Annual growth in retail sales is a crucial indicator of consumer spending.
A 13.6% gain was what the analysts had anticipated seeing.
Compared to the same period a year earlier, fixed asset investment in the first five months of 2023 increased by 4.0 percent, which was lower than the 4.4% increase that was anticipated. During that period, it increased by 4.7%.
Analysts have warned that the data readings from China last month may be greatly distorted due to comparisons with the country’s very poor performance from the previous year, which occurred while many cities were under strict COVID lockdowns.
However, the economic bounce throughout the first quarter has lost a substantial amount of pace, which prompted the central bank to lower some important interest rates this week.
Comment Template