China Center Data Flash: May data – the good, the bad and the ugly

Sequential activity for industry and consumption clearly improved in April and May, but the investment environment remains weak overall. On balance, it seems that lackluster manufacturing investment and still-sluggish real estate activity will be enough to offset the slight sequential acceleration in output from industry this quarter. While the continual roll out of monetary, fiscal, and administrative easing measures is starting to bear fruit, there are still many as many headwinds to growth stabilization as there are tailwinds. Overall, the data are somewhat mixed, and even those data points showing signs of life are doing so at relatively low growth rates.