Retail sales, factory output miss forecasts
BEIJING: China on Tuesday reported slowerthan-expected growth in industrial output and retail sales for October, as a fresh surge in coronavirus cases and a deepening property slump weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.
China is the only major economy adhering to a zero-Covid strategy to stamp out virus clusters as they emerge, but swift and harsh lockdowns associated with that approach have battered growth.
Retail sales in the 10th month dipped 0.5 percent from a year earlier, contracting for the first time since May, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The figure was below the 0.7-percent increase projected by Bloomberg analysts and September’s 2.5-percent growth.
For the 10 months to October, retail sales inched up 0.6 percent year on year and were valued at about 36.05 trillion yuan (about $5.11 trillion).
Online consumption continued to shore up retail sales in the period. Online sales of physical goods climbed 7.2 percent from a year earlier, up 1.1 percentage points from the January to September figure.
Industrial output climbed 5 percent in October from a year ago, lower than the 5.3-percent growth forecast and well below the 6.3-percent gain in September.
“In the face of multiple challenges, such as a more complex and severe international environment and new domestic (Covid) outbreaks ... [officials are] stepping up efforts to implement various measures to stabilize the economy,” the NBS said in a statement.
China’s banking regulator last Friday unveiled sweeping measures to rescue the country’s struggling property sector with credit support for debt-laden housing developers, and financial help to ensure the completion
and handover of projects.
That came on the same day the National Health Commission issued 20 rules for “optimizing” China’s zero-Covid policy, where certain restrictions were relaxed to limit its social and economic impact.
Fixed-asset investment rose 5.8 percent from January to October as the government poured billions of dollars into building new
railways and industrial parks, NBS data showed.
The unemployment rate remained stable at 5.5 percent.
Many analysts expect the Chinese economy to struggle to reach its growth target this year of about 5.5 percent, with the International Monetary Fund lowering its forecast for gross domestic product expansion to 3.2 percent.