Jan-Feb economic data largely sluggish, but property investment rises

A raft of new official data for the January-February period suggested continued sluggishness in the Chinese economy, Reuters reported, citing figures from the National Bureau of Statistics. Real industrial value added grew 5.4% for the period year on year, down from 5.9% in December as manufacturing output fell one percentage point to 6%; fixed-asset investment dropped 3.2 percentage points to 6.9% growth year on year, though growth in property development investment rose to 3%; retail sales growth for the period fell to 10.2% from December’s increase of 11.1%, as sales growth for automobiles dipped 2.7 percentage points from December to 5.4%.