A slew of data from China, including retail sales and industrial production, matched analysts’ expectations, breaking a recent string of worse than expected figures from the world’s second-largest economy.
In May, retail sales rose 10.1 percent from a year earlier, matching expectations from a Reuters poll and slightly stronger than April’s 10 percent rise despite recent signs of weak domestic demand from worse-than-expected import and inflation figures.
Industrial output for May also rose 6.1 percent from a year earlier, matching forecasts from a Reuters poll and slightly stronger than the 5.9 percent increase in April.
But fixed asset investment for the January-to-May period rose 11.4 percent from the year-earlier period, below the 12.0 percent forecast in a Reuters poll, suggesting the country’s economy is continuing to slow.
After the release of the data, the Shanghai Composite slipped into negative territory, down 0.27 percent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped a tad off highs, although it remained in positive territory.
A slew of recent data have missed analysts’ expectations. China’s imports tumbled 17.9 percent in May, more than the 10.7 percent drop forecast in a Reuters poll, data released Monday showed.
China’s consumer price inflation (CPI) rose 1.2 percent in May from the year-earlier period, slightly below the 1.3 percent forecast in a Reuters poll and below the 1.5 percent rise in April.
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Craig Erlam
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