China’s economic recovery under spotlight as weak consumption, slowing factory output expose ‘unsustainable’ first quarter growth
- Private consumption remained weak in April and industrial production slowed, showing vulnerabilities in China’s economic recovery
- New data showed some parts of the economy, particularly the services sector and retail, were being ‘held back’ by pandemic uncertainty
China’s economic recovery remains disjointed and threatens to put the brakes on growth, analysts said on Monday, as new data showed activity across a range of sectors moderated far more than expected in April after a record expansion in the first quarter of the year.
Private consumption was still weak last month while high commodity prices continue to prove a headache for businesses in the world’s second largest economy, economists said.
The new data follows a warning last month from the Politburo about China’s “uneven” post-coronavirus economic recovery, something that was underlined again by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.
There is nothing surprising, the extraordinary readings in the first quarter data were unsustainable
A sharper slide came in retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending in the world’s most populous nation, which grew 17.7 per cent last month from a year earlier, about half as fast as the 34.2 per cent expansion in the March and far below a projected rise of 25 per cent.