In May, retail sales – a key indicator of consumer spending – rose 3.7% year-on-year, following a 2.3% rise in April.
Retail sales increased in May in China. On the other hand, growth in industrial production has slowed, according to official figures published Monday, a sign of an uneven recovery in the world’s second largest economy.
In May, retail sales – a key indicator of consumer spending – grew 3.7% year-on-year, following a 2.3% rise in April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). An increase greater than the forecasts of Bloomberg analysts, who estimated it at 3%.
Industrial production nevertheless slowed, with an increase of 5.6% in May, but below the increase of 6.7% in April and Bloomberg’s forecast of 6.2%. The NBS called the May figures “generally stable,” adding that “the national economy continued to recover and improve.”
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its growth forecast for China to 5% for 2024 at the end of May, in line with the objective set by Beijing, but it is concerned about the challenges that remain on the industrial and budgetary levels. The Chinese economy must in particular overcome the crisis in the housing and construction sector, which has suffered since 2020 from a tightening by Beijing of the conditions of access to credit for real estate developers, in order to reduce their debt.
According to Zhang Zhiwei, chairman of Pinpoint Asset Management, a Hong Kong-based asset management company, the series of measures introduced in May by the government to revive real estate “has not yet stimulated buyer demand.”
