Dr. Mirko Wormuth
"Not as pretty as the China Daily graphic makes it out to be.
📈 4Q23 GDP Growth: 5.2% Year-over-Year (YoY); 1% Quarter-over-Quarter (QoQ). Comparable to consensus predictions. Annual growth met expectations at 5.2%. GDP deflator stayed negative in 4Q.
👶 Demographics: Birth rate at 6.4‰ (down from 6.3‰ in 2022). Population decreased by 2.08 million (sharper fall compared to 0.85 million in 2022). Continuing trend of declining birth rate and negative population growth.
🛒 Retail Sales: December saw 7.4% YoY growth; 0.4% month-over-month (MoM) seasonally adjusted (sa). Lower than expected YoY growth. Improved MoM growth, driven by strong catering sales, but a sharp decline in automobile sales.
🏗️ Fixed Asset Investment: Year-to-Date (YTD) growth of 3% in December (slightly up from 2.9% in November). No significant rebound in key sectors. Infrastructure investment growth remained low at 5.9% YTD. Real estate investment continued to decline, reaching -9.6%.
📉 Unemployment: Increased to 5.1% in December (from 5% in November). This marks the first reported rise in urban unemployment since July 2023. Youth unemployment excluding those in school reported at 14.9% in December, compared to the last full youth unemployment rate of 21.3% in June."
