BEIJING, Dec 15 (Reuters) – China’s factory output and retail sales growth slowed further in November, weighed by weak domestic demand and adding pressure on policymakers to take action to rebalance the $19 trillion economy, \u200bas trading partners take issue with its huge surplus.<\/p>\n
Industrial output rose 4.8% year-on-year, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data \u200cshowed on Monday, slowing from 4.9% growth in October. It missed a 5.0% increase forecast in a Reuters poll.<\/p>\n
Retail sales, a gauge of consumption, \u200cgrew 1.3%, after rising 2.9% in October, lagging forecasts for a 2.8% gain.<\/p>\n
Signs of fragile consumer demand have been mounting. Annual car sales slumped 8.5% in November, the steepest decline in 10 months, dimming hopes for a year-end rebound in an industry that normally sees strong sales in the final two months of a year.<\/p>\n
Even the Singles’ Day shopping festival – which stretched to five \u2060weeks this year by major e-commerce platforms \u200cto drum up sales – failed to excite consumers.<\/p>\n
Fixed asset investment shrank 1.3% in January-November compared with the same period last year, after a 1.7% decline in January-October. Economists expected a 2.3% \u200ddrop.<\/p>\n
Government advisers and analysts say China is likely to pursue its current annual growth target of around 5% next year, as it seeks to kick-start a new five-year plan on a strong footing.<\/p>\n
But that could prove challenging, with both the World Bank and the International \u200bMonetary Fund offering more conservative outlooks for China’s growth trajectory.<\/p>\n
Part of the concern stems from the country’s prolonged \u200cproperty crisis, which has squeezed household wealth and sapped consumers’ appetite to spend.<\/p>\n
A resolution appears some way off, however. China’s home prices are forecast to continue falling through 2026 before stabilising in 2027, a Reuters survey showed.<\/p>\n
At a key economic meeting last week outlining the policy agenda for next year, Chinese leaders promised to maintain a “proactive” fiscal policy to spur consumption and investment, while acknowledging a “prominent” contradiction between strong domestic supply and weak demand.<\/p>\n
Yet the dual focus on consumption and \u2060investment cements concerns that Beijing is not yet ready to ditch a \u200bproduction-driven economic model in favour of one that leans more on household \u200bspending.<\/p>\n
Top officials remain confident in hitting this year’s growth target, buoyed by resilient exports that have defied expectations despite higher U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n
That strength, however, faces a tougher test ahead as China’s trillion-dollar \u200dtrade surplus fuels tensions with \u2060Europe and other trading partners.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron threatened Beijing with tariffs during his visit to China and called on the country to correct “unsustainable” global trade imbalances.<\/p>\n
Mexico last week approved tariff hikes of up to 50% next \u2060year on imports from China and several other Asian countries, aiming to bolster local industry.<\/p>\n
“China’s economic development still faces numerous longstanding and emerging \u200cchallenges,” the official summary of the Central Economic Work Conference said.<\/p>\n
“We must strengthen internal capabilities to cope \u200cwith external challenges.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Sam Holmes)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEIJING, Dec 15 (Reuters) – China’s factory output and retail sales growth slowed further in November, weighed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,381,179,18,67017,19,17,9408,8881,114165],"class_list":{"0":"post-233493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-growth-target","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-national-bureau-of-statistics","16":"tag-retail-sales","17":"tag-retail-sales-growth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115721955182038244","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}