Residents go through disinfectant spray while their shared apartment lifts epidemic control lockdown on Aug. 14, 2021 in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China.
Ruan Zhong | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING – China released economic data for July showing slower than expected growth.
Retail sales rose 8.5% year over year in July, less than forecast 11.5%, according to analysts polled by Reuters. Auto-related sales, the largest component of retail sales by value, were the only category to decline 1.8% year over year in July.
According to a Reuters survey, industrial production grew by 6.4% and was therefore below expectations of a year-on-year increase of 7.8% in July.
According to Reuters, investments in property, plant and equipment rose by 10.3% in the first seven months of the year and thus below the forecast growth of 11.3% compared to the previous year for the period from January to July.
The National Bureau of Statistics noted “the impact of several factors including growing external uncertainties and the domestic COVID-19 epidemic and flood situation,” according to a press release. The office added that “economic recovery is still unstable and uneven”.
The urban unemployment rate was 5.1% last month, while that of 16-24 year olds was much higher at 16.2%.
