Chinese retail sales rebounded in January and February as Beijing abandoned its suffocating zero-Covid policy, reopening borders and ending mandatory quarantine, and the country celebrated the Lunar New Year holiday.
The 3.5-percent growth, released by the National Bureau of Statistics, came in line with expectations and was much better than the 1.8 percent drop suffered in December, indicating the world's number two economy was picking up after years of painful restrictions.And with Beijing this week announcing it will resume issuing tourist visas, there is a hope for a further improvement this year.
Fixed-asset investment also showed an improvement, rising 5.5 percent in January-February -- beating forecasts of 4.5 percent growth -- as the government poured billions of dollars into building new railways and industrial parks, NBS data showed."Production and demand have improved significantly, and employment and prices are generally stable," the NBS said in a statement.China has set an economic growth target of"around five percent" for 2023, one of the lowest in decades.
In a sign of the troubles facing the property sector, the NBS figures showed investment in real estate fell 5.7 percent in January-February as it continues to feel the effects of a government crackdown to curb risky borrowing by developers. The government has warned that a global slowdown will hamper the country's recovery from pandemic-era damage.
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