China’s Caixin Daily (September 17) said that China's major economic indicators posted a worse-than-expected performance for August as growth of fixed-asset investment and value-added industrial output further slowed to multi-month, even multi-year, lows. Fixed-asset investment, a key driver of domestic demand that includes infrastructure investment, increased 5.5% YOY in the first eight months of this year, offiicial data said, down from 5.7% growth during the first seven months of the year. It marks the lowest growth rate since investment grew 5.4% in the first nine months of 2018 and missed a Bloomberg economist poll with a median forecast of 5.7% growth. Government-driven infrastructure investment rose 4.2% YOY in the first eight months of 2019, up from 3.8% growth in the first seven months, while investment in real estate development rose 10.5% from a year earlier in the first eight months of 2019, down from 10.6% growth in the first seven months and marking the lowest rate since the whole of 2018, official data showed.
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