On the face of it, China’s core economic figures – industrial production, investment and retail sales showed no significant change in May – which is good news for supplier countries such as Australia.
Late last week’s release of trade data was OK, while inflation data was benign.
Yesterday’s release showed the rate of growth in China’s retail sales and industrial output was unchanged in May, but fixed-asset investment eased. Retail sales grew 10.7% year on year in May, unchanged from April. Industrial production rose 6.5% in May from April, also unchanged from April.
Crude steel output edged maintained a near record pace – up 1.8% from May last year at 72.26 million tonnes and half a million tonnes under April’s all time high of 72.78 million tonnes.
In the first five months of the year, production totalled 346.8 million tonnes, up 4.4% from the same period a year earlier, China’s Statistics Bureau said online sales growth for the year to date jumped by 26.5% in May from May last year compared to growth of 25.9% for the four months ended April. But sales growth at larger enterprises remained static from a month prior at 10.7%.
Urban fixed-asset investment grew 8.6% year on year during the five months ending May 31, down from growth of 8.9% in the year ended April. Investment by state-controlled firms fell eased to 12.6% growth after rising almost 14% in April.
Growth in private investment growth eased in May, with a rise of 6.8% down just 0.1 of a percentage point in the months, compared to April’s fall of 0.8 percentage points.
According to Reuters property investment growth eased for the first time in three months in May, growing 7.2% from a year ago, compared to a rise of 9.6% in April.
The Financial Times reported that investment in real estate development for the January-May period rose 8.8% compared to a year earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
The softening of investment came as sales growth for commercial housing marked a third consecutive month of slowing growth. New housing purchased in the first five months of 2017 came to 548.2 billion square meters, for a year-on-year rise of 14.3%, 1.4 percentage points slower compared to the year ended April.
In value terms sales totalled nearly Rmb4.4 trillion ($US642 billion), up 18.6% from the same period in 2016 but 1.5 percentages slower than April. Hours after the data was released the International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for China’s gross domestic product to 6.7% for 2017, up from 6.6% previously and the government’s target of about 6.5%.
The IMF also projected GDP to grow 6.4% annually from 2018 to 2020, according to a statement issued at the conclusion of a mission from the fund to Beijing and Lanzhou from June 1-14.
