From Asia Times, November 15:
Property downturn widens economic strains as weakening demand, falling prices and job pressures ripple across households and industries
China’s fixed asset investment (FAI) suffered a sharp setback in October, signalling renewed stress across the real economy as the property downturn continued to erode activity and put a drag on broader investment performance.
According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, nationwide FAI for the ten months of January through October reached 40.89 trillion yuan (US$5.7 trillion), marking a 1.7% year-on-year contraction. This sharp deterioration compares with a 0.5% decline for the first nine months of the year.
Based on cumulative figures, China’s FAI in October fell 12% to 3.74 trillion yuan from 4.25 trillion yuan in the same period last year. All three major sectors registered year-on-year declines: primary-industry investment contracted 12.4%, secondary-industry investment slipped 8.4%, and tertiary-industry investment plunged 13.5%.
Residential property development investment decreased 13.8% year-on-year to 5.66 trillion yuan in the first ten months. In October alone, the figure dropped 19.4% to 454.9 billion yuan from a year earlier, highlighting the deepening drag from the ongoing property correction.
“Excluding real estate, China’s FAI grew 1.7% in the first 10 months from the same period of last year,” NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said at a media briefing on Friday. “The decline in property investment dragged down overall investment growth by about three percentage points. Besides, some industries lack sufficient momentum for expansion, which has objectively weighed on investment growth.”....
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