Another batch of data from China released today surprised on the upside. GDP growth came in at 6.4% yoy in Q1, unchanged from prior quarter and beat expectation of 6.3% yoy.
In March, industrial production rose strongly by 8.5% ytd yoy, accelerated from 5.3% and beat expectation of 5.6%. Retail sales rose 8.7% ytd yoy, up fro 8.2% and beat expectation of 8.3%. Fixed asset investment rose 6.3% ytd yoy, up from 6.1% yoy and matched expectation of 6.3%. Jobless rate also improved from 5.3% to 5.2%.
Recent data from China continued to paint the picture of stabilization in slowdown, and raised hope that recovery is on the way. That’s an important condition for improvement in global outlook.
Australian Dollar jumps notably after the release. In particular, EUR/AUD drops through 1.5721 key support and whole decline from 1.6765 might be resuming.
However, reactions elsewhere are rather muted. At the time of writing, China Shanghai SSE is just flat. Hong Kong HSI is even down -0.23%.
