china records industrial surge

By Online business reporter Michael Janda with wires

Posted 1 hour 1 minute ago


Chinese industrial production continued to surge in November, rising 19.2 per cent since a year earlier (Reuters)

China's industrial output grew 19.2 per cent over the year to November, according to official Chinese figures.
That is an acceleration from the 16.1 per cent annualised growth recorded last month, and is comfortably above the median economist forecast of an 18.2 per cent rise in a survey by Bloomberg.
Consumer prices also increased for the first time in 10 months, rising 0.6 per cent.
Retail sales grew 15.8 per cent over the past year, but this was slightly below market expectations of 16.5 per cent growth.
The rapid growth has been driven by a $640 billion Chinese Government stimulus package, and record levels of bank lending with 294.8 billion yuan in new loans extended in November, up from 253 billion the month before.
China's level of outstanding loans is now 33.8 per cent higher than a year ago.
Some analysts expect China to start more actively reigning in stimulus spending and lending as the economic recovery takes firm hold.
"Beijing's fine-tuning of stimulus measures shows that it's getting more comfortable with the economy's recovery," Lu Ting, an economist at the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg.
"The Government may start to exit stimulus via curbing investment and loans from April."
Other analysts have expressed concerns that the level of Chinese borrowing has already created asset bubbles, particularly in the property sector.