NBS: China's economy remains stable, investment accelerates in Jan-Feb

Despite the uncertain external environment and the downward pressure on the economy, the economic operations in the first two months were generally stable with investment growth accelerating, spokesperson for China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Mao Shengyong said.

The industrial output expanded 5.3 percent in the first two months, down from 5.7 percent in December 2018, NBS data showed Thursday.

Industrial output is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises with an annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about three million U.S. dollars).

Retail sales rose 8.2 percent in the January-February period from a year earlier, in line with December data, according to the NBS.

"The growth trend of the modern service industry is relatively good," Mao said, adding that information transmission, software and information technology industries maintained a high growth rate of 26.5 percent.

In the first two months of the year, the total volume of imports and exports was 4.5 trillion yuan, influenced by the Spring Festival factor, a year-on-year increase of 0.7 percent, but down by 1.2 percent from last December.

In the January to February period, exports stood at 2.4 trillion yuan, while imports were 2.1 trillion yuan.

"The structure of foreign trade is constantly optimized, while the export growth continues," Mao said.

China's fixed-asset investment grew 6.1 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2019, 0.2 percentage points higher than that recorded in 2018, NBS data showed.

China's real estate investment increased 11.6 percent year-on-year in the first two months of this year. The growth was faster than the 9.5 percent expansion recorded in 2018.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)