China’s economy showed signs of stabilizing last month, with retail sales and factory output beating expectations as a power supply crisis appeared to ease, data released yesterday showed.
The recovery in the world’s second-largest economy has been losing steam for much of the year after a swift bounceback from harsh lockdowns to contain COVID-19, with officials earlier citing an “unstable and uneven” economic rebound.
Power outages in the past few months caused by emission reduction targets, the surging price of coal and supply shortages also affected factory production.
Photo: EPA-EFE
However, industrial production grew 3.5 percent year-on-year last month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, as China worked to boost coal production and ease its energy shortage. A survey of economists tipped a 3.0 percent expansion.
NBS spokesman Fu Linghui (傅令輝) said yesterday that the “international environment remains complex and severe” with many uncertainties, adding that China needs to “work harder to maintain economic stability and recovery.”
“While electricity shortages and production cuts hampered output in early October, we don’t think they are a significant problem anymore,” Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics said yesterday.
He added that this follows “a range of policy measures to boost coal production and lower coal prices.”
However, economic momentum remained weak last month, he said, “with the real estate downturn weighing on industry and a new wave of COVID outbreaks dampening household consumption.”
Retail sales rose 4.9 percent year-on-year last month, far exceeding forecasts for 3.7 percent, the latest data showed.
Yet observers warn that this could be bogged down by recent containment measures, reimposed following a fresh virus outbreak in the middle of last month that has spread to several regions.
Fu said that “domestic tourist numbers and income growth were below pre-pandemic levels” during the golden week holiday at the start of the month.
The urban unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent.
Weakness in the economy is giving the country’s central bank a headache as it must try to nurture a recovery while at the same time keep a lid on inflation, which is at levels not seen since the mid-1990s.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS