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China’s economic activity showed signs of improvement in August, beating market expectations, as the government’s measures to support growth started to kick in, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.
China’s industrial production in August rose 4.2% from a year earlier, higher than the 3.8% increase in July, the statistics bureau said. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had anticipated industrial production to grow 4% last month.
Retail sales, a key gauge of China’s consumption, grew 5.4% from a year earlier in August, up from a 2.7% increase in July, and also higher than the 4% growth expected by surveyed economists.
China’s fixed-asset investment increased 5.8% in January-August, compared with a 5.7% expansion in the first seven months of the year, said the statistics bureau. Economists had expected FAI to increase 5.5% in the first eight months.
China’s urban surveyed unemployment rate was 5.3% in August, down from 5.4% in July. The jobless rate for young workers aged 16 to 24 years old also declined from a record high of 19.9 in July to 18.7% in August.
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