China’s retail sales and industrial output grew strongly last month as the government spent heavily on a stimulus to boost growth in the world’s third-biggest economy as exports plunged.
Retail sales rose 15.2 percent compared with May last year, up from April’s 14.8 percent growth rate, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported yesterday. Industrial output rose 8.9 percent, rebounding from April’s lackluster 7.3 percent and exceeding March’s 8.3 percent rate.
Beijing is trying to shield China from the global slump by boosting domestic consumption with a 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) plan to inject money into the economy through spending on building highways and other public works.
PHOTO: EPA
Yesterday’s data highlighted the economy’s heavy reliance on government spending to maintain growth and the gap between stimulus-financed industries and struggling fields with exposure to plunging exports.
Output of stone and other minerals used in stimulus-financed construction rose 14.7 percent last month, while auto production jumped 29 percent, boosted by sales tax cuts and other government incentives for buyers. Among industries exposed to exports, output of computers and telecommunications equipment grew by just 4.3 percent.
Analysts also point to healthy retail sales as another possible source of growth, though consumer spending is still a relatively small portion of China’s economy.
The government has set a growth target of 8 percent this year, though the economy expanded by only 6.1 percent in the first quarter — its slowest rate since the 1990s, but the strongest for any major economy this year. The World Bank says it expects 6.5 percent growth for this year and private sector economists say the economy is improving.
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Five flights have been arranged to help nearly 2,000 Taiwanese tourists return home from Okinawa after being stranded due to cruise ship maintenance issues, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced yesterday. China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) have arranged five flights with a total of 748 additional seats to transport 1,857 passengers from the MSC Bellissima back to Taiwan, the ministry said. The flights have been scheduled for yesterday and today by the Civil Aviation Administration, with the cruise operator covering all associated costs. The MSC Bellissima, carrying 4,341 passengers, departed from Keelung on Wednesday last week for Okinawa,
China is deploying its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades, posing a threat to Taiwan that is more pronounced than previous Chinese war games, the Ministry of National Defense said today. Speaking in Taipei, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang (孫立方) said the scale of the current Chinese naval deployment in an area running from the southern Japanese islands down into the South China Sea was the largest since China held war games around Taiwan ahead of 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections. China's military has yet to comment and has not confirmed it is carrying out any exercises. "The current scale is
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