China’s first-quarter gross domestic product data has thrown into stark relief the effects of President Xi Jinping’s bet that a manufacturing boom can help the world’s second-largest economy overcome a prolonged slump in the property market.The National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday reported a 6.1 per cent rise in industrial production and a nearly 10 per cent increase in manufacturing investment, which helped bolster a better than expected reading of 5.3 per cent gross domestic product growth year on year for the first three months of 2024.
But with property sales falling by double digits, analysts questioned whether policymakers’ concentration on fuelling supply instead of domestic demand would prove a sustainable plan for an economy suffering from low consumer and investor confidence and deflationary pressures.
“The drivers are pretty clear — more production and exports helped along with more investment on the manufacturing front,” said Hui Shan, chief China economist at Goldman Sachs.