China’s factory output and retail sales grew at their weakest pace in over a year in October, piling pressure on policymakers to revamp the $19 trillion export-driven economy as a trade war with the US and weak domestic demand heighten risks to growth, reports Reuters. Industrial output grew 4.9% year-on-year in October, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed, the weakest annual pace since August 2024, compared with a 6.5% rise in September. It missed a 5.5% increase forecast in a Reuters poll. Retail sales, a gauge of consumption, expanded 2.9% last month, also their worst pace since August last year, and cooled from a 3.0% rise in September. They compared with a forecast gain of 2.8%.
For decades, the officials charged with keeping the world’s second-largest economy humming have had the option of spurring its vast industrial complex to boost exports should consumers tighten spending at home, or reaching into the public purse to fund GDP-boosting infrastructure projects.
But US President Donald Trump’s tariff war is providing a stark reminder of the manufacturing juggernaut’s reliance on the world’s largest consumer market, and even an economy of China’s size can only squeeze so much growth from building more industrial parks, power substations and dams. Friday’s indicators gave little hope for a quick turnaround, and the worse the data gets every month, the more urgent the need for reform becomes.