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China’s retail sales slowdown highlights fear of ‘threefold pressure’
- Retail sales and industrial production grew by 3.9 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively, in November from a year earlier
- Fixed-asset investment grew by 5.2 per cent in the January-November period, while the surveyed jobless rate rose to 5 per cent last month
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Evidence of the “threefold pressure” facing China’s economy came thick and fast on Wednesday as retail sales growth slowed and coronavirus outbreaks continued to disrupt production and the labour market last month, analysts said.
Retail sales fell short of expectations as they grew by just 3.9 per cent in November, down from October, less than a week after China’s tone-setting annual central economic work conference warned of a contraction of demand, supply shocks and weaker expectations.
The downtrend further highlighted a slowdown in consumption’s contribution to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which has been evident since the start of the year, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
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Taking into account inflation, China’s retail sales actually grew only by 0.5 per cent last month, according to Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura.
For China’s economy in the near future … when high exports growth can’t be sustained, at what level can GDP keep growing and what can keep supporting the creation of new jobs
“The real crutch for GDP growth has been exports since the middle of the year. Based on our estimations, exports accounted for 40 per cent of the 9.8 per cent GDP growth in the first three quarters, and nearly half of the 4.9 per cent in the third quarter GDP growth,” he said.
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