China retail sales pick up speed, beats forecasts in October
This comes as Beijing pushes for an official national growth target this year of around 5%, a goal most experts believe it will narrowly miss
CHINA’S retail sales last month grew at their fastest clip since the start of the year, official figures showed on Friday (Nov 15), an encouraging sign for Beijing as it looks to boost sluggish consumption.
Officials have since late September unveiled a slew of measures including interest rate cuts and debt swaps intended to boost activity in the world’s second-largest economy, which has struggled to regain momentum since the pandemic.
Among the woes facing policymakers are slumping domestic consumption resulting in deflationary pressure, a property sector bust and geopolitically fraught trade disputes.
Retail sales expanded 4.8 per cent on year in October, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, speeding up from the 3.2 per cent in September.
The reading also significantly outperformed the 3.8 per cent forecast in a Bloomberg survey of analysts – representing the best reading since February.
Figures also showed the national urban unemployment rate fell slightly to 5 per cent, from 5.1 per cent in September.
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However, industrial production growth edged down to 5.3 per cent in October, the NBS figures showed, from 5.4 per cent the previous month.
The NBS said in a statement that in October “positive factors accumulated and increased and the national economy was stable, with progress and growth”.
Beijing is pushing for an official national growth target this year of around 5 per cent, a goal most economists believe it will narrowly miss.
But recent weeks have seen officials announce their most aggressive measures in years in a bid to breathe fresh life into the economy.
The new policies have included a debt swap programme to ease the burden on local governments, mortgage rate cuts and the elimination of certain restrictions on home purchases. AFP
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