BEIJING – China’s retail sales grew last month, official data showed today, as consumers continue their return to spending with the country’s Covid-19 outbreak largely brought under control.
Retail sales in the world’s second-largest economy rose 5% on-year last month, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The figure is the same as that predicted by analysts polled by Bloomberg, and up from the 4.3% growth the previous month on the back of a week-long national holiday.
NBS spokesman Fu Linghui told a press briefing that China’s economy is seeing a “steady recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic, which first emerged in central China late last year.
But, he warned that “given the resurgence of the epidemic, the world economic recovery is facing headwinds with increasing instabilities and uncertainties”.
Although China has largely brought Covid-19 under control, spending has been slower to recover as the world grapples with the impact of the pandemic, in particular, the hospitality industry.
Today’s data showed that the catering sector’s revenue growth was down by 0.6% in November, after turning positive for the first time this year a month earlier.
Industrial production growth last month grew slightly to 7%, ticking up from 6.9%.
Meanwhile, the urban unemployment rate – a key concern, with a large number of graduates entering the market this year after the pandemic hit – fell slightly to 5.2% in November, the fourth straight month.
However, experts have cautioned that the figure could be higher due to large numbers of people in China’s informal workforce. – AFP, December 15, 2020
