Investing.com - China’s GDP growth figures for the first quarter of 2018 came in at 6.8% year-on-year, slightly above market expectation of 6.7%, official data showed on Tuesday. Strong consumer demand and surprisingly robust property investment were cited as supportive.
On a quarterly basis, GDP in the first quarter jumped 1.4%, compared with the revised growth of 1.6% in the October-December period, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Analysts had expected growth of 1.5%.
However, the country’s industrial production data came in worse than expected, posting 6.0% compared to the estimated 6.4% and the 7.2% for the January-February period. Meanwhile, retail sales beat expectations in March, rising 10.1% from a year ago as sales of cosmetics, clothing, furniture and home appliances rose during the period. The data is compared to the consensus forecast of 9.9%.
In other data, January to March fixed asset investment growth slowed to 7.5% from a year ago, down from 7.9% in the first two months of the year. Economists had previously expected fixed asset investment to come in at 7.6% over the first three months of 2018.
The slew of data came amid escalating tensions with the U.S. in recent months, its largest trading partner.
Analysts at Nomura said the stable first-quarter growth “was supported mainly by the new economy components”, but added that “weaker March activity data support our view that there will be an economic slowdown ahead, driven by cooling investment growth, financing deleveraging, structural reforms which bring short-term pain, and rising trade protectionism.”