China’s Economy Loses Steam in April

China’s economy showed broad-based weakness in April, CNBC reported Monday, with retail sales, industrial output and investment all falling short of analyst expectations.

China’s retail sales grew just 0.2% year-on-year last month. That was far below the 2% gain economists had pencilled in. It also marked the slowest growth reading since December 2022, when Beijing was unwinding its zero-Covid policies.

Consumption and Output Miss Badly

Industrial production expanded 4.1% from a year earlier in April. That decelerated sharply from March’s 5.7% pace and came in well below the 5.9% rise forecast in a Reuters poll. Urban fixed asset investment contracted 1.6% in the first four months of the year combined. Analysts had expected a 1.6% expansion over that period, reversing the 1.7% gain recorded through March.

The urban unemployment rate offered a rare bright spot, easing to 5.2% from 5.4% the prior month.

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Property Sector Remains the Deepest Wound

The investment shortfall traced directly to a deepening real estate slump. Property investment has fallen nearly 13.7% since the start of the year, widening from an 11.2% drop through March. At the same time, separate data showed new home prices kept sliding in April, though at a marginally slower pace.

Lizzi Lee, a fellow at the Center for China Analysis, warned that further home price declines would erode household wealth further. The downturn has already displaced significant numbers of workers in construction and related industries, she noted.

Property investment in China has roughly halved since its 2021 peak.

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Exports Cushion the Blow but Cannot Offset It

Strong export performance provided a partial offset. Overseas shipments surged 14.1% in April, more than doubling the 7.9% forecast, as foreign buyers rushed to stockpile goods amid supply fears linked to the Iran war. Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, told CNBC that buoyant exports helped but were insufficient to compensate for weak domestic demand.

Separately, Washington announced Sunday that Beijing agreed to purchase at least $17 billion in American agricultural goods annually and an initial 200 Boeing jets, following last week’s Trump-Xi summit. The two governments also agreed to form joint trade and investment boards under a tariff-reduction framework. OCBC Bank’s Tommy Xie said both sides appear to recognise that an uncontrolled economic conflict would impose severe costs on each.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui flagged energy market volatility as an additional headwind at a press briefing Monday.

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