Growth in China’s consumption and industrial production cooled in May, showing that the country’s economic recovery is losing momentum, official data showed Thursday.
Retail sales, a proxy for China’s consumption, rose 12.7% from a year earlier in May, down from an 18.4% increase in April, said the National Bureau of Statistics. The result missed the 13.1% growth expected by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
On a monthly basis, retail sales rose 0.42% in May from April.
Industrial production rose 3.5% in May from a year earlier, down from April’s 5.6% increase and on par with the 3.5% growth expected by surveyed economists.
China’s industrial output rose 0.63% in May from a month earlier, the statistics bureau said.
Fixed-asset investment increased 4.0% in the January-May period, slowing from the 4.7% increase in the first four months and slower than the 4.4% growth anticipated by economists.
China’s surveyed urban unemployment rate remained at 5.2% in May, same as in April. However, the youth unemployment rate, which covers workers aged 16 to 24 years old, stood at 20.8% in May, a record high.
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