China’s retail sales increased by 5.5 per cent year-on-year in the first two months of the year, while industrial output rose by seven per cent. Both figures exceeded analysts’ expectations. According to news agencies, this follows data released today by Chinese statisticians. The world’s second-largest economy is thus continuing to recover, although not all sectors are doing well. The latest macroeconomic data have buoyed the Chinese stock market.
Recovering
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected retail sales, which reflect consumption, to rise 5.2 percent year-on-year. For industrial production, which is important to China’s economy, they were expecting a 5 percent rise for January and February.
A spokeswoman for the statistics bureau, Liu Aihua, told DPA that the economy was continuing to recover. The government’s economic growth target for this year is around five percent and she said it could be met. But Liu reminded that the environment for economic development is complicated. She also mentioned that domestic demand remains weak.
“We believe that China’s sequential growth momentum remained solid in the first quarter, despite significant differences across sectors,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.
Real Estate
Investment in real estate construction, a sector that is going through a severe crisis, fell nine per cent from the first two months of last year. Analysts see the crisis in the real estate sector as the main cause of China’s weak economic performance.
Beijing usually publishes some economic data for January and February together, due to the rolling start of the new lunar year and the related holiday. This year, the Spring Festival holidays, when factories and other businesses tend to be closed, has boosted the tourism sector again.
The Shanghai Composite Index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange gained 0.9 percent today. The CSI300 index, which includes the largest firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, firmed 1 percent.
Source: ČTK
