China's Retail Sales Up 4% in Jan-Feb... Industrial Production Rises 5.9%

China's retail sales from January to February this year increased by 4% compared to the same period last year. During the same period, industrial production rose by 5.9%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China on the 17th.

The retail sales growth rate for January to February improved compared to December last year (3.7%) and exceeded economists' forecasts, Bloomberg reported.

Shanghai, China. Photo by EPA Yonhap News

Industrial production during the same period increased by 5.9%. Although this is a slowdown compared to December last year (6.2%), it surpassed the median estimate of analysts, Bloomberg said.

Fixed asset investment from January to February, which shows changes in capital investment in factories, roads, power grids, real estate, etc., excluding rural areas, rose 4.1% year-on-year, higher than the expected 3.6%.

During the same period, real estate development investment decreased by 9.8% year-on-year, indicating that the real estate market downturn continues. However, compared to last year's overall real estate development investment, which fell 10.6% year-on-year, the decline slowed by 0.8 percentage points.

New home prices in February fell 4.8% year-on-year, a slower decline than January's 5.0%.

The nationwide urban unemployment rate averaged 5.3% from January to February. Monthly rates were 5.2% in January and 5.4% in February.

The National Bureau of Statistics stated, "Overall, from January to February, various macro policies continued to be effective, leading the economy to maintain an improving trend and enhancing the quality of development. However, it should be noted that the external environment is becoming more severe, domestic effective demand is insufficient, and some companies face difficulties in production and management, meaning the foundation for sustained economic recovery and improvement is not yet solid."

Bloomberg Economics assessed, "Although the Chinese economy performed better than expected in the first two months of this year, stimulus measures remain essential to sustain the economic recovery."

The Chinese Communist Party and government set boosting domestic demand as the top priority at the largest political event, the Two Sessions (Lianghui), earlier this month. Following the announcement of the 'Special Action Plan for Consumption Promotion' to revitalize consumption the day before, a joint press conference by economic departments on consumption promotion policies will be held this afternoon.

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