Beijing: China's economic growth will soften this year due to summer flooding and anti-coronavirus controls, an official said Monday, after consumer sales and other activity weakened in July.
China's economy still is in a recovery trend from last year's pandemic-induced slowdown but is likely to weaken after a relatively strong first half, said Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics.
This year's main economic growth trend will be low after high, Fu said at a news conference.
Fu gave no growth forecast. Private sector forecasters say the world's second-largest economy easily should achieve 8 per cent over last year's depressed level.
Growth in July retail sales softened to 8.5 per cent over a year earlier, below the consensus forecast of 10.9 per cent and down from the previous month's 12.1 per cent. Factory output grew 6.4 per cent, below the forecast of 7.9 per cent.
Growth momentum weakened sharply, said Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics in a report.
The economy was disrupted by unusually severe summer flooding that hit central China in July, killing more than 300 people in
Henan province.