China’s economic activity slides as Covid lockdowns hit growth – business live

George Magnus, an associate at Oxford University’s China Centre, says layoffs in the property and tech sector are pushing unemployment up in China:

Stocks have opened lower in London, as China’s April slowdown added to concerns about the economic outlook.

The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares has dropped 50 points, or 0.7%, to 7368 points.

Equipment rental firm Ashtead (-2.7%) and packaging group Smurfit Kappa (-2.4%) are among the top fallers, along with engineering group Rolls-Royce (-2.5%) and airline group IAG (-2.2%).

European markets are also lower, with Germany’s DAX index down 0.5% and France’s CAC down 0.8%.

China’s property sales fell sharply in April too, as Covid-19 lockdowns hit demand.

Reuters has the details:

Property sales by value in April slumped 46.6% from a year earlier, the biggest drop since August 2006, and sharply widening from the 26.17% fall in March, according to Reuters calculations based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Monday.

Property sales in January-April by value fell 29.5% year-on-year, compared with a 22.7% decline in the first three months.

China’s property sector has been strugging with a liquidity crisis, after Beijing brought in rules to rein in property developers’ debt. That has been exacerbated by strict lockdown measures to combat Covid-19 outbreaks.

Last week, Chinese property developer Sunac became the latest company in the sector to default on a bond payment, in a real estate crisis that began at indebted property group Evergrande.

China’s slowdown in April will reinforce global growth concerns, warns Lee Hardman of MUFG bank:

Economic weakness was widespread in April as retail sales contracted by an annual rate of -11.1%, industrial production by -2.9% and property investment by -2.7% on a year to date basis.

The latest data clearly highlights the economic damage inflected by the government’s continued commitment to their zero-COVID strategy. It will encourage further downgrades to forecasts for economic growth in Q2 and for this year as a whole. The current Bloomberg consensus forecast is for annual GDP growth to slow from 4.8% in Q1 to 4.0% which now appears too optimistic.

The longer the COVID restrictions remain in place the greater the downside risks to growth for the year as whole and the current Bloomberg consensus forecast for growth of 4.8% in 2022.

Tommy Wu, lead China economist at Oxford Economics, said lockdowns are ‘severely’ affectin China’s supply chains:

“The prolonged Shanghai lockdown and its ripple effect through China, as well as logistics delays resulting from highway controls… have severely affected domestic supply chains,”

China’s disappointing economic numbers have buffeted economic sentiment further, reports Naeem Aslam, analyst at Avatade:

Clearly, it is China’s zero-tolerance policy that is causing the industrial output and consumer spending to break down, and currently, they are sitting at their worst level since the pandemic began.

The data has made traders anxious about the global economic outlook. The general trend is likely to prevail in the market, which is that the dollar index continues to act as a safe haven, Treasuries will soar, and oil prices may move further lower; this shows that this week could be another week of weakness for the global equity markets.

Fu Linghui, spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics, told reporters that China’s economy took a hit from the rise in Covid-19 cases in April.

But Fu added that the impact will be “short-lived”, and that the economy will recover.

“The fundamentals of the Chinese economy remain unchanged. The overall trends of economic transformation and upgrading and high-quality development remain unchanged.

“There are many favorable conditions for stabilizing the economy and achieving the expected development goals.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the world economy and the financial markets.

China economic slowdown has accelerated as Covid-19 lockdowns hit its factory sector hard, consumers slashed their spending, and unemployment rose.

Retail sales and factory output both plunged at the fastest rate since early in the pandemic, with analysts warning of no quick recovery.

Retail sales fell by 11.1% in April from a year ago, almost twice as bad as the 6.1% fall expected by economists. It is the biggest slump since March 2020, in the first wave of Covid, with many consumers either under restrictions, or worried about the economic outlook.

Industrial production dropped by 2.9% in April, year-on-year, dashing hopes of a rise of 0.4%. That’s the biggest fall since early 2020, as the ‘zero covid’ strategy forced factories to suspend operations and disrupted supply chains.

China’s labour market took a hit too, with the nationwide jobless rate rising to 6.1% in April, up from 5.8%. That’s the highest rate since February 2020.

The data shows the rising economic cost from the tough restrictions brought into quash outbreaks of the pandemic, such as lockdowns in Shanghai, and mass testing and quarantine centres in Beijing, where some businesses such as gyms, malls, and cinemas were closed in its largest district.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis in Hong, told Al Jazeera that ““The data might be only the start of the recession”.

“Given the continuation of the COVID restrictions in May, the data will not be good in this month as well.

We shall expect more rescue policies to support private and small enterprises, which are important hubs for employment, as unemployment increased to 6.1% in April.”

The slowdown will add to concerns that the world economy could be weakening.

Last night, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein warned there was a “very, very high risk” that the US economy was heading towards a recession.

Blankfein, now Goldman’s Senior Chairman, told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that companies and consumers should prepare for a recession as the Federal Reserve lifts interest rates to tackle inflation, but added that it’s not ‘baked in the cake’ yet.

“If I were running a big company, I would be very prepared for it,.

If I was a consumer, I’d be prepared for it.”

European stock markets are set to open a little lower, having ended last week with a strong rally. But despite that bounce, global stocks sank for a sixth consecutive week, the longest losing streak since the middle of 2008.

Also coming up today

The European Commission is set to cut its prediction for 2022 euro-area growth and almost double its estimate for inflation, when it releases its latest economic forecasts today.

Draft documents seen by Bloomberg and the FT show that the eurozone is seen growing by 2.7% this year, and 2.3% next year, down from 4% and 2.7% forecast in February.

Inflation is expected to rise over 6%, as consumers and businesses are hit by the energy crisis following the Ukraine war.

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey faces a grilling over the UK’s surge in inflation, when he appears before the Treasury Committee.

Conservative MPs are expected to criticise Bailey’s handling of inflation, which is expected to hit 10% later this year.

One cabinet minister has told the Telegraph that the Bank has been failing to “get things right”, with another saying government figures were “questioning its independence”.

The agenda

• 10am BST: European Commission publishes Spring Forecasts
• 3.15pm BST: Treasury committee hearing with the Bank of England