China’s industrial production is growing at its slowest rate since the global financial crisis, the government said on Saturday.
The measure, which gauges output at factories, workshops and mines in the world’s second-largest economy, rose 5.4% year-on-year in January and February.
The figures were the weakest since November 2008, during the global financial crisis.
Retail sales, a key indicator of consumer spending, increased 10.2% in the same period, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Fixed-asset investment, a measure of mainly government spending on infrastructure, expanded 10.2% on-year for the first two months of 2016.
Results fell short of economists’ expectations, according to a survey by Bloomberg News, which predicted a year-on-year increase in retail sales of 10.9%, while industrial production was projected to expand 5.6%.