Explainer | From China’s property-investment slowdown to its scrubbed youth-jobless rate: 7 takeaways from July’s economic data
- China’s economic recovery remained uneven in July as property investments fell by 8.5 per cent, year on year, from January to July
- Beijing also halted the release of monthly jobless-rate breakdowns, including for 16-24 and 25-59 age groups, citing need to improve how falling numbers appear
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Is youth joblessness worsening in China? Beijing’s official figures offering fewer clues
1. Property-investment slowdown seeping into rest of economy
Property accounts for more than one-fifth of China’s fixed-asset investments and contributes around 14 per cent to economic growth.
National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui said that China’s property market was “now experiencing an adjustment period” that is “going to be challenging for [property business] to operate in the short term”.
But Fu said that risks will be defused once property-market policies are adjusted.
The property market has been a huge drag as confidence has seeped out, with lower property investment and lower transaction volumes
“The property market has been a huge drag as confidence has seeped out, with lower property investment and lower transaction volumes, suggesting that many of the policy measures aimed at [creating] a soft landing for the property market have yet to restore confidence in the market,” said Heron Lim, an economist at Moody’s Analytics in Singapore.
2. Slowing investment misses expectations
Overall fixed-asset investment in the first seven months of the year grew by 3.4 per cent, but this was lower than the expected rise of 3.9 per cent by Chinese data service provider Wind and slower than the rise of 3.8 per cent in the first half of the year.