China's April industrial output, retail sales plummet amid COVID-19 resurgence
China's latest economic performance mirrored how serious the COVID-19 epidemic hit the country's industrial and service sectors.
The industrial output declined by 2.9 percent in April from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday, down from a 5-percent increase in March.
April retail sales dropped by 11.1 percent year on year, marking the biggest downturn since March 2020, continuing the 3.5-percent shrink from the previous month, according to the NBS.
Since March, a new wave of COVID-19 spreading across China has slowed down business activities and production as northeastern Jilin Province and major cities including Shanghai and Beijing implemented different degrees of closed-off management.
Shanghai and Jilin are China's car manufacturing hubs, where General Motors and Volkswagen have joint ventures with Chinese companies. Shanghai is home to Tesla's Gigafactory.
According to the statistics bureau, automobile production and sales contracted the most in April compared with other categories. The manufacturing output decreased by 31.8 percent year on year, producing 435,000 fewer vehicles. Retail sales were also down 31.6 percent from April 2021.
The COVID-19 resurgence also seriously affected the catering sector, with revenue declining 22.7 percent year on year in April, the NBS said. On Monday, dining-in was still not allowed in Beijing due to COVID-19 prevention measures; restaurants can only do deliveries.
However, the food and beverage sectors were relatively stable, increasing 10 and 6 percent year on year, respectively, in the month, which the NBS said signified that "residents' basic living supplies are effectively guaranteed." Read More...
