Sumana Das, Pune
China has decided not to release the Youth Unemployment data on Tuesday due to the economy’s shaky state. Major economic misses were recorded in July by the National Statistics Bureau. However, the study omitted data on youth unemployment, which recently reached record highs as well.
Reuters researchers had forecast some of the YoY numbers in several Chinese economic indices before the July release. However, compared to the expected points, the provided data fared badly. Retail sales increased by 2.5% over the prior year, which was less than the 4.5% level predicted by Reuters’ expert poll. Industrial production also underperformed expectations, increasing by only 3.7% from the previous year as opposed to the expected 4.4% increase. Although the Fixed Asset did better in the first seven months by 3.4%, it fell short of the anticipated results of 3.8%. In June, the urban jobless rate increased sharply, from 5.3% to 5.2%.
The Bureau barred the Youth Unemployment report stating the need to “improve and optimize the Labour Force Survey Statistics” in the middle of the tumbling economic and social changes. Contrasting all the previous releases, the latest release did not add data on the parameters of age. The youth aged between 16 to 24 witnessed an unparalleled leap of 21.3 per cent in June.
NBS spokeswoman Fu Linghui stated during a press briefing in Beijing that starting in the first week of August, the NBS will stop publishing data on other age groups and the urban jobless rate.
The sluggish economy of the nation is expected to be revived by a broad-based rebound, according to experts. The government is attempting to make baby steps towards recovery, however, by asking the private sector to contribute in the short term to meet the targeted requirements.
On Tuesday, the Central Bank reduced the key interest rate on the medium-term lending facility (MLF) by 2.5 per cent. Usually, when a central bank reduces the MLF rate, the financing cost of the commercial banks also lowers thus encouraging them and lend more and potentially promoting domiciliary consumption.
Cutting rates, however, would not be as helpful as watching out for the real estate market, which is now in critical condition, according to Larry Hu, Chief Economist of Macquarie. The huge real estate sector is approaching a point of collapse because of the economy’s continued heaviness. While Hu is worried about the ongoing conflict between sales and confidence, which is declining day by day, Linghui is relying on policy improvements to improve the situation.
During the conference, NBS emphasized the importance of intensifying the role of macro policies to expand domestic demands against the “insufficient” demand noticed by them. On Monday, the Chinese currency reportedly gave poor performance along with its peer Indian currency going down to 83 USD.