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Peggy Sito

Industrial output continues to grow at a slower pace, rising 10.6 per cent year on year in November to 217.1 billion yuan (about HK$203.4 million).

The slowdown was attributable to weaker exports and investments and analysts predict growth will continue to drop this month.

The 10.6 per cent increase is slower than an 11.4 per cent growth year on year in October, Xinhua quoted the State Statistical Bureau as saying yesterday.

For the first 11 months of this year, industrial production reached 2.1 trillion yuan, representing a 11.5 per cent rise from the same period last year.

Output rose 11.6 per cent year on year in the first 10 months of this year.

'Investment growth slowed down last month and exports continue to slow, which dragged down industrial output in November,' Reuters quoted Hu Shaowei, a senior economist at government think-tank the State Information Centre, as saying.

Output was affected by China slashing production of coal and steel because of market oversupply.

China has yet to announce trade figures for November but Premier Zhu Rongji on Sunday said exports rose 30.1 per cent year on year to US$227.2 billion in the first 11 months.

The Ministry of Foreign Trade forecast last week that China would have a trade surplus of US$25 billion this year with exports likely to rise 23 per cent year on year to US$240 billion.

Analysts said exports growth had started slowing in the fourth quarter and predicted a continued drop amid the soft-landing of US economy.

Analysts said industrial output was just one of the important economic indicators but said a clearer picture would be seen when more economic figures were announced.

Standard Chartered Bank senior economist Liao Qun said China would announce retail sales and fixed-asset investment figures soon.

Those November figures represent the performance of the domestic economy, he said, adding a strong domestic economy would offset the export slowdown.

In November, state-owned companies' production rose 9.1 per cent year on year, higher than October's growth rate of 8.3 per cent. Heavy industrial output grew by 13.2 per cent year on year and stayed about the same compared to October.

But light industrial output increased at a slower rate of 7.5 per cent year on year and the growth rate was 1.4 percentage points less than October's growth rate.

The slower growth in light industrial output was due to lower consumption during November.

Part of the reason for that was because there were no public holidays in November, compared with a week-long National Day holiday in October, the government said.



Industrial output growth eases as exports weaken