It was a case of the proverbial good news/bad news in the latest Chinese economic data for the September quarter and the month of September.
Growth slowed, as expected, industrial production jumped a little more than expected, retail sales and urban investment were a touch weaker, and retail estate investment again weakened.
All in all the news was just solid enough to give the tiniest amount of encouragement to nervy investors – it helped drag the value of the Aussie dollar back above 88 US cents, for example.
But Asian markets mostly remained in the red, or fell further after the report came out.
The data showed that China’s third quarter economic growth fell to an annual rate 7.3%, the lowest since the GFC, with weakening real estate investment the big culprit.
It was in fact the slowest growth since the start of 2009 when China was struggling to grow after the failure of Lehman Brothers the previous September.
The slowing rate matches recent forecasts from the IMF and World Bank, with the forecasting that China will grow 7.4% this year and 7.2% in 2015.
The official target is 7.5% for this year (meaning China is on track to miss that target this year).
The official target could be reset to 7% for 2015, according to reports from China in recent weeks.
Industrial production grew 8%, up from the 6.9% annual rate seen in August (and a near 20 year low).
For Australia, the key figure in the various reports was crude steel production and although it totalled a solid 67.54 million tonnes in October, down 2% on the 68.9 million tonnes produced in August, and the second lowest monthly output after the 62 million tonnes produced in holiday impacted February.
September’s figure was 3.2% higher than the 65.4 million tonnes produced in September of 2013 and came as iron ore imports hits near record 84 million tonnes in the month, while steel exports reached record levels as well.
Output in the first nine months of the year rose 2.3% from a year earlier to 618 million tonnes.
September’s retail sales rose 11.6%, slower than the 11.9% seen in August, while fixed asset investment, excluding rural households ,increased 16.1% in the first nine months from a year earlier. That was down on the 16.5% rate seen in the eight months to August.
The economy grew a seasonally adjusted 1.9% from the June quarter, down slightly on the 2% quarter on quarter growth rate seen in the three months to June.
Investment in real estate in the first nine months continued rose at a slower pace of 12.5%, from the same period last year. The compares to the 13.2% seen in the eight months to August.
Housing sales by floor space fell in the first nine months of this year by 10.8% compared with the same period in 2013, while revenue from property sales dropped 8.9%, a key indicator which shows the extent of the impact of the property slowdown.
