Chinese industrial production increases 6.4% year-on-year in July

Beijing, Aug 16 (EFE).- China’s industrial production grew by 6.4 percent year-on-year in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported Monday.

The figure was below analysts’ forecasts – who expected 7.8 percent – and lower than the 8.3 percent growth recorded the previous month.

Despite the favorable base effect from last year when the Chinese economy began to pick up after the halt in economic activity caused by the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the figure shows a recovery of industrial production although it is also the fifth consecutive month of deceleration.

Out of the three categories that the indicator is divided in by the NBS, the production and supply of electricity, fuel, gas and water increased by 13.2 percent in July.

Manufacturing grew 6.2 percent year-on-year, while mining expanded 0.6 percent.

In the year-on-year comparison of the 41 industrial sub-sectors whose data the NBS studies, 35 registered an increase in activity in the seventh month of the year.

Industrial machinery (64.6 percent), metal-cutting machinery (44.2 percent) and microcomputer equipment (37.9 percent) posted the highest growth in production.

The NBS also released data of other indicators on Monday, such as retail sales, an important sector to judge domestic demand and one of the mainstays of the economic model backed by Beijing.

This segment posted an increase of 8.5 percent year-on-year in July compared to 12.1 percent in the previous month although the analysts had predicted that it would grow by 11.5 percent.

On the other hand, fixed-asset investment increased by 10.3 percent in the first seven months of the year, according to NBS.

Likewise, real-estate investment grew by 12.7 percent between January and July 2021 after having posted a growth of 15 percent in the first half of the year.

Urban unemployment rate, another indicator released on Monday, stood at 5.1 percent in July, compared to 5 percent in the previous month, according to the agency.

The NBS said in a statement that the data showed that the level of economic growth is in line with expectations and that the national economy continues to stabilize and recover despite multiple shocks such as growing external uncertainty and the pandemic situation in the country. EFE

jt/pd/lds