China\u2019s economy showed further signs of weakness last month as it comes under strain from Donald\u2019s Trump trade wars and domestic problems, with factory output and consumer spending rising at their slowest pace for about a year.<\/p>\n
The disappointing data adds pressure on Beijing to roll out more stimulus to fend off a sharp slowdown, with a debt crisis denting the country\u2019s once-booming property sector and exports facing stronger headwinds.<\/p>\n
Economists were split over whether policymakers should introduce more near-term fiscal support to hit their annual 5% growth target, with manufacturers awaiting further clarity on a US trade deal and domestic demand curbed by an uncertain job market and property crisis.<\/p>\n
Industrial output grew by 5.2% year-on-year last month, National Bureau of Statistics data showed on Monday, the lowest reading since August 2024 and below the 5.7% rise in July. Retail sales, a gauge of consumption, expanded 3.4%, the slowest pace since November 2024, and cooling from a 3.7% rise in the previous month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe activity data point to a further loss of momentum,\u201d Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics<\/a>, wrote in a note. \u201cWhile some of this reflects temporary weather-related disruptions, underlying growth is clearly sliding, raising pressure on policymakers to step in with additional support.\u201d<\/p>\n Factory activity was hit by the hottest conditions since 1961 and the longest rainy season for the same period.<\/p>\n Authorities are leaning on manufacturers to find new markets to offset Trump\u2019s unpredictable tariff policies<\/a> and weak consumer spending.<\/p>\n Separate data this month showed factory owners have had some success diverting US-bound shipments to south-east Asia, Africa and Latin America, but the drag from the property crisis continues.<\/p>\n \u201cLynn Song, chief economist, Greater China at ING, suggested the weak data indicated \u201cfurther stimulus support could be needed to ensure a strong finish to the year\u201d.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cWhile it is too early to gauge the impact of the consumer loan subsidies coming into effect in September, it is likely that more policy support is still needed, given the broader slowdown across the board.\u201d Song said there was a \u201chigh possibility\u201d of further interest rate cuts in coming weeks.<\/p>\n However, Zhaopeng Xing, senior China strategist at ANZ, said that while the data showed momentum in the world\u2019s second-largest economy was weakening, it was not yet bad enough to trigger a new round of stimulus.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cPolicies and measures to support service consumption are expected to offset the impact of aggregate demand this month,\u201d he said, adding that an official crackdown on firms aggressively cutting prices made domestic demand appear worse than it was.<\/p>\n Chinese households, which have seen their wealth shrink in the real estate downturn, have tightened their purse strings as business confidence falters, dampening the jobs market.<\/p>\n Unemployment edged up to a six-month high of 5.3% in August, from 5.2% a month prior and 5% in June.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, new home prices fell by 0.3% last month from July and by 2.5% on an annual basis, a different NBS dataset showed.<\/p>\n Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s economy showed further signs of weakness last month as it comes under strain from Donald\u2019s Trump trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-145668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}