China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported today that retail sales fell 3.5% in March compared to the same month last year.
In the first quarter of 2022, retail sales in China increased by 3.3% to 10.87 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion).
Retail sales in China’s urban areas totaled 9.43 trillion yuan in the first quarter, up 3.2% year on year. Retail sales in rural areas increased by 3.5%.
Online retail sales increased 6.6% year-on-year to 3.01 trillion yuan in Q1.
China’s industrial production increased by 5% year-on-year in March. In the first quarter as a whole, industrial production rose by 6.5%, driven by strong growth in the high-tech sector in this period.
Mining production grew by 10.7% in the first quarter, high-tech production by 14.2%, equipment production by 8.1%, and new energy vehicles (NEVs) production by 140.8%.
The Chinese government uses industrial production data as a measure of the activities of large companies with annual sales of at least 20 million yuan (about $3.11 million).