China May industrial output up 6.1% y-o-y, meets forecast

[BEIJING] China's industrial production, which measures output at factories, workshops and mines in the world's second-largest economy, rose 6.1 per cent year-on-year in May, the government said Thursday.

Retail sales, a key indicator of consumer spending, increased 10.1 per cent in the same month, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

And fixed asset investment, a measure of government spending on infrastructure, expanded 11.4 per cent on-year in the January-May period, the NBS said.

The industrial output figure came in at a three-month high and was marginally above the 6.0 percent median forecast in a poll by Bloomberg News.

The retail sales result matched the median forecast of 10.1 per cent.

The data came as China's economy has continued to slow in 2015 after growing at its weakest pace - 7.4 per cent - in nearly a quarter century last year. In the first three months of this year gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 7.0 per cent in January-March, the worst quarterly result in six years.

China's authorities are trying to engineer a controlled slowdown as they seek to transform the country's growth model to one whereby consumer spending becomes the key driver as opposed to heavy infrastructure investment.

But they fear too fast a deceleration and have carried out stimulatory measures including interest rate cuts to help ensure the slowdown doesn't get out of hand.

AFP