Overview
- Retail sales rose 2.9% year over year in October, the weakest pace in over a year and the fifth consecutive monthly deceleration, NBS data showed.
- Industrial output grew 4.9% from a year earlier, down from 6.5% in September and below forecasts, marking the softest reading in more than a year.
- Fixed-asset investment fell 1.7% in the January–October period, a sharper decline than the first nine months and a record drop for the span, according to Bloomberg’s parsing of official data.
- Housing pressure intensified as new home prices fell 0.5% month on month—the fastest drop in a year—with residential development investment plunging and October’s tally down 19.4% from a year earlier.
- Trade and policy signals were mixed, with exports reported to have contracted in October for the first time in nearly two years, unemployment edging to 5.1%, CPI turning positive at 0.2%, and NBS emphasizing ongoing external and structural challenges.