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🇨🇳 China's factory output climbs while the consumer stalls, and the gap is no longer cyclical
The day in view

🇨🇳 China's factory output climbs while the consumer stalls, and the gap is no longer cyclical

Macro Soup Newsroom Macro Soup Newsroom 3 min read

Industrial production rose 4.3% YoY in May while retail sales printed flat at 0.0%. Four years into the property correction, the household wealth effect is broken and Beijing's toolkit has not fixed it.

Line chart comparing Chinese retail sales (orange) and industrial output (gray) from Apr to Apr 2026, including forecasts.
Macro trader Billy's chart underscores the divergence between resilient industrial output and softening domestic retail sales in China's May release. Source

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