On July 12, 2024, cars made in China were waiting to be shipped for export at Yantai Port, Shandong Province, China.
VCG | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING – China’s second-quarter GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.7%, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday, below expectations of 5.1%, according to a Reuters poll.
Retail sales rose 2% year-on-year in June, missing expectations of 3.3%.
Industrial production rose 5.3% year-on-year in June, beating expectations of 5%.
Urban fixed asset investment grew by 3.9% in the first six months of this year, in line with expectations.
The National Bureau of Statistics did not hold a press conference on the release of the data. China’s high-level policy meeting, the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, opens on Monday and is scheduled to end on Thursday.
China’s GDP increased by 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter.
China’s exports increased by 8.6% annually, exceeding expectations Customs data released on Friday show. However, imports fell by 2.3% year-on-year in June, falling short of small growth expectations.
Other measures also point to weak domestic demand.
China’s consumer prices rose 0.2% in June compared with the same period last year, which was lower than expected. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.6% in June from a year earlier, slightly lower than the 0.7% increase in the first six months of this year.
Credit demand is weak
China’s latest credit data released on Friday showed that broad money supply and the growth rate of new RMB loans fell sharply in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2023.
Home loans grew by 1.46 trillion yuan ($200 billion) in the first six months of this year, nearly half of the 2.8 trillion yuan in new loans in the category last year. According to the People’s Bank of China.
In the first half of the year, corporate loans increased by 11 trillion yuan, slightly lower than the 12.81 trillion yuan in the same period last year.
“June monetary and credit data indicate that credit demand remains weak,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note on Friday. “Recent policy communications indicate that the central bank continues to focus on strengthening monetary policy transmission and downplaying the importance of total credit growth. Looking ahead, the growth rate of new RMB loans and M2 may further gradually slow down.”
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