China's industrial output up 4.8 percent in July

China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, expanded by 4.8 percent year-on-year in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday. This is 1.5 percentage points lower than the growth recorded in June, according to the NBS.

On a monthly basis, industrial output edged up 0.19 percent from June.

In the first seven months of the year, industrial output was up 5.8 percent from the same time last year, with the pace of growth slowing from the 6 percent registered during the first half of the year.

According to the NBS data, China's retail sales of consumer goods rose by 8.3 percent in the first seven months of the year compared to the same time last year, down slightly on the 8.4 percent growth recorded in the first six months.

In July, retail sales climbed 7.6 percent from one year earlier, with the pace of growth down 2.2 percentage points from June. NBS spokeswoman Liu Aihua attributed the slowdown to shrinking auto sales last month.

The figures released on Wednesday also showed that China's fixed-asset investment grew by 5.7 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of the year, 0.1 percentage points lower than the growth recorded in the first six months.

Fixed-asset investment amounted to 34.89 trillion yuan (about 4.98 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first seven months. Private sector investment was up 5.4 percent in the first seven months compared to the same time last year, reaching 21.03 trillion yuan. And the growth rate was 0.3 percentage points lower than that for the first six months. Fixed-asset investment includes capital spent on infrastructure, property, machinery, and other physical assets.

(Story includes material sourced from Xinhua.)