“Export resilience”
According to Zichun Huang, an analyst at Capital Economics, the drop in sales could reflect the waning impact of consumer subsidies.
However, the headline numbers likely overstate the strength of the economy, he added.
Likewise, industrial production grew 5.2% in December, compared to 5.8% in the same month in 2024, indicated the ONE. However, December’s figure was slightly higher than November’s.
“December activity suggests that productive growth gained some momentum at the end of the year, but that was largely due to the resilience of exports,” Huang said.
“We expect this year’s growth to be at least slightly lower than in 2025,” the analyst anticipated.
