Chinese industrial production increased by 4.2% year-on-year in August

Industrial production in China grew by 4.2% year-on-year in August, according to official data released today by the National Statistics Office (ONE).

These figures represent a rise of 0.4 points compared to those of July (+3.8% year-on-year) and exceed by that same margin the most widespread forecasts among experts, who advanced a result similar to that of the previous month.

In the month-on-month comparison, the industrial production of the Asian giant rose by 0.32%.

According to the division of the indicator into large industrial segments, the production and supply of electricity, heating, gas and water was the one that experienced the greatest rebound (+13.6%), followed by mining (+5.3%) and manufacturing (+3.1%).

The ONE also published today other indicators for the eighth month of the year, such as retail sales -a measure of the state of consumption, key to economic recovery-, which rose by 5.4% year-on-year and exceeded both the figure for July (+2 .7%) and analysts' expectations (+3.5%).

For its part, the official unemployment rate in urban areas fell again by 0.1 points and ended at 5.3%, once again below the limit set by the national government for this year (5. 5 %).

With regard to investment in fixed assets, the statistical agency did not publish today the interannual evolution of the August data, but it did publish the intermonthly (+0.36%) and the accumulated so far this year, which rose slightly until 5.8%, 0.1 points more than in the calculation of the first seven months of 2022.

The ONE highlighted that, despite the international instability and the serious heat waves and outbreaks of the covid that China experienced, most of the indicators improved their performance compared to July, in part thanks to the support policies announced by The authorities.

However, the institution again warned that the foundations of China's economic recovery "are not solid" and that the international environment "remains complicated and serious."