By Gina Lee

Investing.com – China’s industrial production grew faster than expected in November, with stronger energy production and moderating raw materials prices lending support. The country’s new COVID-19 epidemics led to a slowdown in growth of retail sales. This led to tighter restrictions.

released earlier in the day showed that grew 3.8% year-on-year, above the 3.6% growth in forecasts prepared by Investing.com and the previous month’s 3.5% growth. However, in the year to date grew 10.1% year-on-year, lower than October’s 10.9% growth.

The data also showed that grew 3.9% year-on-year, lower than the 4.6% growth in forecasts prepared by Investing.com and October’s 4.9% growth. grew 5.2% year-on-year, also lower than the 5.4% growth in forecasts prepared by Investing.com and the previous month’s 6.1% growth.

The largely disappointing data emphasized the headwinds faced by the world’s second-largest economy’s recovery. This includes wobbles within the property sector as well as COVID-19 epidemics that have led to strict restrictive measures and lower consumer spending.

“The November economy remained very weak. Pinpoint Asset Management’s chief economist Zhiwei Zhiwei Zhang said that domestic consumption fell further as a result of the policy to tolerate any damage to the service and property sectors.

Some analysts expect China’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth to drop below 4% from the third quarter’s 4.9% growth. But, analysts noted that full-year growth might still hover around 8% which would be higher than the official goal of over 6 percent.

All this prompted the government to increase support, with the country’s top leaders pledging to focus on stabilizing the economy and keeping growth within a reasonable range in 2022 at a meeting last week. The leaders also pledged that they would prioritize stimuli in 2022 before the 20th Communist Party Congress.

The People’s Bank of China also cut the amount of cash banks must hold in reserve last week, the second such move in 2021. To support small businesses and the rural sector, the central bank also reduced the interest rates for its re-lending program.