China’s National Bureau of Statistics says retail sales in the country rose 17.7% in April from a year earlier.
While a big increase, April’s retail sales actually missed analysts’ expectations of 24.9% growth in April and represented a slowdown from 34.2% annual growth in March.
Catering sales, which include restaurant dining, grew 46.4% year-over-year in April, down from 91.6% in March. Online sales of consumer goods rose 23.1% during the first four months of the year from a year earlier, a slower pace than the 25.8% growth rate of the first three months of the year.
In a monetary policy report released last week, the People’s Bank of China noted that the foundation for economic recovery is not yet solid and consumer spending remains constrained.
China’s unemployment rate fell to 5.1% in April, down from 5.3% in March, but the average number of hours worked a week declined to 46.4 hours last month, from 46.9 hours in March. The unemployment rate for people in China aged 16 to 24 remained high at 13.6%.
Retail sales contracted last year despite expansion in China’s gross domestic product (GDP), the only major economy to grow in 2020.
