Data show correction in economy
Print Edition
CHINA’S industrial production, retail sales and fixed-asset investment growth slowed in April in the latest sign that economic momentum was moderating.
The industrial output, a major contributor to GDP, grew 6.5 percent year on year in April, down from March’s growth of 7.6 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
The April figure was also below market consensus expectation of 7 percent.
But Jiang Yuan, a bureau statistician, said the slowdown was a correction from a surge in March, and was also due to fewer working days last month than April last year.
Industrial output rose 6.7 percent year on year in the January-April period, 0.1 percentage points slower than the first quarter.
Retail sales growth slowed to 10.7 percent year on year last month from 10.9 percent in March, due to weaker car sales, the bureau said.
Slower expansion of investment in manufacturing industries caused fixed-asset investment growth to slow to 8.9 percent year on year in the first four months from 9.2 percent in the first quarter, the bureau’s data showed.
Private-sector investment, taking up above 60 percent of total investment, grew 6.9 percent in the first four months to 8.81 trillion yuan (US$1.3 trillion), slower than the first quarter’s 7.7 percent.
Economists said the economic indicators in April suggested weaker momentum in the second quarter, but they expected China to meet the official target of 6.5 percent GDP growth this year with improved economic structure.
“April’s data signal a moderation in second-quarter GDP,” the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group said in a note. “The data are in line with the drop in manufacturing and service PMIs during the month. The decline in commodity prices seems to have begun to negatively affect the economy.”
China’s official manufacturing PMI, leaning toward larger and state-owned companies, fell below market consensus to 51.2 in April.
The official non-manufacturing PMI fell 1.6 points from March to 52.6 in April.
Julia Wang, an economist with HSBC, said the bank estimated China’s economic growth at 6.7 percent this year, above the government’s target of 6.5 percent but slower than 6.9 percent in the first quarter.
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