Overview
- Retail sales rose 2.9% year over year in October, the slowest pace since August 2024 and the fifth straight monthly deceleration from May’s peak.
- Industrial output grew 4.9%, missing forecasts and marking the weakest reading since mid‑2024, with economists also citing base effects and fewer working days.
- Fixed‑asset investment fell 1.7% in the January–October period as the property slump deepened, with real estate investment down roughly 14% and new‑home prices posting their steepest monthly drop in a year across most major cities.
- Exports unexpectedly contracted in October after a months‑long run of gains, even as a late‑October U.S.–China one‑year tariff truce altered the near‑term trade backdrop.
- The NBS said the economy was generally stable, with the jobless rate at 5.1% and CPI up 0.2% year on year, while Beijing’s more than 1 trillion yuan in recent fiscal support is expected to take time to feed through.