China August Retail Sales Rise 0.4%, Below Forecasts; Fixed-Asset Investment Shrinks 7.2%
Macro
China's economy continued to face pressure from slowing consumption and investment in August, even as industrial output expanded faster than expected, reflecting still-weak domestic demand. Retail sales in August rose 0.4% from a year earlier, below a Bloomberg survey forecast of 0.8% and slowing from 0.6% growth in July. Fixed-asset investment in the first eight months of the year fell 7.2% from the same period a year earlier, a slightly sharper contraction than the market had expected. Industrial output in August rose 5.2%, above expectations and accelerating from 4.5% in July. China's National Bureau of Statistics said the economy in August was broadly stable, but that negative effects from external factors were intensifying, while the imbalance between strong supply and weak domestic demand remained evident. Property investment fell 19.9% in the first eight months of the year from a year earlier, with the contraction deepening, while the urban unemployment rate rose more than expected to 5.3% from 5.2% in July. Meanwhile, auto sales slumped 18.5% in August from a year earlier. Excluding auto sales, retail sales would have grown 2.5% in August, the same rate as in July.
