China’s investment slump deepened and retail sales growth slowed further in August, while industrial output topped estimates with authorities warning of acute supply-demand imbalance at home. <\/p>\n
Retail sales grew 0.4% in August from a year earlier, data from National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday, slowing from 0.6% in the prior month and missing economists’ forecast for a 0.8% growth in a Reuters poll. <\/p>\n
Industrial output expanded 5.2% last month, accelerating from 4.5% growth in July and outperforming economists expectations for a 4.8% rise. <\/p>\n
For the first eight months of the year, urban fixed-asset investment, which covers property and infrastructure investment, shrank 7.2% from a year earlier, steepening from 6.7% decline in the January-to-July period, matching analysts’ expectations. <\/p>\n
The urban survey-based unemployment rate in August ticked up to 5.3% from 5.2% in July. <\/p>\n
“We should be aware that the adverse impact of (the) external environment has intensified,” the statistics bureau said in an English-language release. It noted “acute” imbalance domestically between “strong supply and weak demand,” adding that some businesses still faced operational difficulties. <\/p>\n
In the statement, the NBS called for stepping up macro-policy adjustments and boosting domestic demand, while advancing industrial upgrades for “innovation-led” development. <\/p>\n
Growth in the world’s second-largest economy slowed to 4.3% in the second quarter, the weakest pace in more than three years<\/a>, veering further from Beijing’s annual target of 4.5% to 5%. Policymakers have so far resisted more aggressive stimulus, relying instead on incremental measures to shore up growth.<\/p>\n Export resilience has powered the economy, as a global investment boom in artificial intelligence lifts demand for Chinese semiconductors and tech hardware. The country’s massive oil stockpiles have also offered a further buffer against surging energy prices, allowing the world’s biggest crude importer to scale back imports. <\/p>\n China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index showed new orders and output both returned to expansion in August after contracting in July. <\/p>\n Efforts to fire up appetite for new debt have, however, fallen short. China’s credit expansion in August missed forecasts by a wide margin, with government bond financing unable to offset sluggish corporate and household demand. <\/p>\n New bank loans expanded by just 60 billion yuan ($8.95 billion),<\/a> versus a roughly 400 billion yuan forecast and down from 590 billion yuan a year earlier, while outstanding loan growth slowed to a record-low 4.9%<\/a>. <\/p>\n A team of economists led by Raymond Yeung, China economist at ANZ Research, said in a note earlier this month that “September could represent an important policy window to revive business confidence ahead of October’s Golden Week holidays.” More fiscal support is needed, but a policy rate cut remains unlikely, they added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s investment slump deepened and retail sales growth slowed further in August, while industrial output topped estimates with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[256890,12922,45,161,49,48,95,2294,46,20822,100,3097],"class_list":["post-896151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-lco26x","tag-breaking-news-asia","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-china","tag-economic-events","tag-economy","tag-market-insider","tag-markets","tag-stock-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896151","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=896151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}