BEIJING: China’s economy faltered in April as consumption, industrial output and investment growth all missed expectations, underscoring the drag from the ongoing war in Iran on the world’s second-largest economy.
Retail sales rose just 0.2% from a year earlier, sharply below economists’ forecasts for a 2% increase and down from 1.7% growth in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday. That marked the weakest pace since December 2022, when China began easing its Covid restrictions.
Industrial output climbed 4.1% year-on-year, slowing from March’s 5.7% and undershooting a Reuters poll forecast of 5.9%. Urban fixed asset investment contracted 1.6% in the first four months of 2026, reversing a 1.7% gain in the January-March period and missing expectations for growth.
The decline was driven by the property sector, where investment plunged 13.7% through April, deepening from an 11.2% drop in the first quarter. Infrastructure investment rose 4.3% and manufacturing gained 1.2%.
Property investment has nearly halved since its 2021 peak, with falling home prices eroding household wealth and fueling job losses in construction and related industries.
New home prices continued to fall in April, though at a slower pace, highlighting the prolonged property downturn. Exports provided some relief, surging 14.1% as factories rushed to meet overseas demand from buyers stockpiling goods amid fears of rising input costs. That beat expectations for 7.9% growth.
China’s urban unemployment rate edged down to 5.2% in April from 5.4% in March. Meanwhile, U.S. officials said Sunday that Beijing agreed to purchase at least $17 billion of American agricultural products in 2026 and the following two years, along with an initial order of 200 Boeing jets, after a high-profile meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week.
