China's April Economic Indicators Improve... Industrial Production Turns Positive (Update)

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Park Sun-mi] China’s economic indicators for April are being evaluated as somewhat improved.

On the 15th, the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced that industrial production in April increased by 3.9% compared to the same period last year. This exceeded experts’ expectations, which had predicted an increase of only 1.5%. This is the first time this year that industrial production has turned positive from negative. In March, industrial production decreased by 1.1%, and in the earlier months of January and February, the growth rate was recorded at -13.5%.

Fixed asset investment continued its negative trend but showed some signs of improvement. The growth rate of fixed asset investment from January to April was -10.3%, an improvement compared to -16.1% from January to March.

Retail sales in April decreased by 7.5% compared to the same period last year. This also shows improvement from the March figure of -15.8%. There was a clear trend of reluctance to consume non-urgent items such as clothing and footwear (-18.5%), gold, silver, and jewelry (-12.1%), and home appliances (-8.5%). Retail sales still continued to show negative growth, and the decline was larger than the forecast of -6.0%, but compared to the first quarter’s -19%, it is being evaluated as showing signs of recovery.

However, the urban unemployment rate in April slightly rose to 6.0% from 5.9% in the previous month, leaving open the possibility that the worsening employment market could slow China’s economic recovery going forward.

The National Bureau of Statistics stated, “Major economic indicators in April have somewhat improved, and our country’s economic operations are gradually recovering to normal levels,” but also noted, “With the epidemic still widespread outside the country, many challenges remain in stabilizing and recovering the domestic economy.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.