China kicks off the year on strong note as retail, industrial data tops expectations

cnbc.com:

BEIJING —  China's economic data for the first two months of the year beat analysts' expectations on Monday.

Retail sales rose 5.5%, better than the 5.2% increase forecast in a Reuters poll, while industrial production climbed 7%, compared with estimates of 5% growth.

Fixed asset investment rose by 4.2%, more than the 3.2% estimated by analysts.

The unemployment rate in February for cities came in at 5.3%.

Online retail sales of physical goods rose by 14.4% from a year earlier during the first two months of the year.

Investment into real estate fell by 9% in the first two months of the year from a year ago. Investment in infrastructure rose by 6.3% while those in manufacturing increased by 9.4% during that time.

National Bureau of Statistics Spokesperson Liu Aihua said that real estate remains in a period of «adjustment,» according to a CNBC translation of his statement in Mandarin.

When asked about the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24, Liu said the figures would be released a few days after the monthly press conference on economic data.

Economic figures for January and February are typically combined in China to smooth out variations from the Lunar New Year, which can fall in either month depending on the calendar year. It is the country's biggest national holiday, in which factories and businesses remain closed for at least a week.

This year, the number of domestic tourist trips and revenue during the holiday grew compared with last year as well as pre-pandemic figures from 2019. But Nomura's Chief China Economist Ting Lu pointed out that «average tourism spending per trip was still 9.5% below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.»

Retail sales did not rebound from the pandemic as strongly as many had expected as