Guangzhou (JLC), May 17, 2024 – China's key economic indicators continued to improve in April, suggesting that the economy was still well on track for a steady growth this year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
China's value-added industrial output - a gauge of activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors - grew 6.7% year on year in April, accelerating from 4.5% in March, figures released by the NBS showed. In January-April, the industrial output grew 6.3% year on year.
The service sectors continued to show improvement, with the service production index rising 3.5% year on year in April, the NBS said. In January-April, the service production index rose 5.0% year on year.
Retail sales of goods, a key measurement of consumer spending, gained 2.3% year on year to CNY3.57 trillion in April, the NBS data showed. In January-April, China’s retail sales of goods gained 4.1% year on year to CNY15.6 trillion.
Fixed-asset investment - a gauge of expenditures on sectors including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment – increased 4.2% year on year to CNY14.34 trillion in January-April.
In CNY terms, the total value of imports and exports of goods stood at about CNY3.64 trillion in April, an increase of 8.0% year on year. Among them, exports were about CNY2.08 trillion, up 5.1% year on year, while imports were about CNY1.56 trillion, up 12.2% year on year.
In January-April, the total value of imports and exports of goods stood at about CNY13.81 trillion, up 5.7% year on year. Among them, exports were about CNY7.81 trillion, up 4.9% year on year, while imports were about CNY5.99 trillion, up 6.8% year on year.
The surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 5% in April, down 0.2 percentage points from the same month last year, according to the NBS. In January-April, the urban unemployment rate was at 5.2%, versus 5.4% in the same months last year.
