China's industrial production has contracted for the first time in three decades as the coronavirus epidemic wreaked havoc on the economy, official data showed yesterday.
Industrial production for January and February shrank 13.5 per cent in the first two months of the year, markedly worse than a Bloomberg poll of analysts which forecasted a 3 per cent drop on-year.
Retail sales plummeted 20.5 per cent from a year ago during the same period -- its worst showing in decades as well -- after rising 8 per cent in 2019.
Analysts had expected a 4 per cent fall.
Data in the first two months is released together to account for regular seasonal factors during the Lunar New Year holiday.
But this year, China's businesses and factories saw an unusually slow return to work after an extended Spring Festival break, as Beijing attempted to curb the rapid spread of the coronavirus.
Consumers were urged to stay home and avoid gatherings.
The drop in industrial output marked a sharp reversal from 6.9 per cent growth in December, and 5.7 per cent growth for 2019 overall.
ING chief economist for Greater China Iris Pang said it is the first contraction since January 1990, when industrial production shrank 21.1 per cent.
Fixed-asset investment was down 24.5 per cent on-year, a drop on the 5.4 per cent rise seen last year.
The data, released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) yesterday, was the latest in a series of economic indicators showing the extent of the epidemic's impact on China's economy.
China's exports plummeted in the first two months of this year, dropping 17.2 per cent, and the country's trade surplus with the US sharply narrowed 40 per cent.
The NBS said yesterday that China's economic development in the first two months had been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, but reiterated officials' stance that the impact was "short-term and external".
"At present, the virus spread has been basically curbed and the outlook for epidemic prevention and control is getting positive," said NBS spokesman Mao Shengyong
yesterday.