The slowdown in China's economy deepened in August, with industrial production growing at its weakest pace in 17-and-a-half years amid rising US trade pressure and softening domestic demand.
Retail sales and investment gauges also worsened, data on Monday showed, reinforcing views that China is likely to cut some of its key interest rates this week for the first time in over three years to prevent a sharper slump in activity.
Despite a slew of growth-boosting measures since last year, the world's second-largest economy has yet to stabilize, and analysts say Beijing needs to roll out more stimulus to ward off a sharper slowdown.
Industrial output growth unexpectedly weakened to 4.4 percent in August from the same period a year earlier, the slowest pace since February 2002 and receding from 4.8 percent in July. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a pick-up to 5.2 percent.
In particular, the value of delivered industrial exports fell 4.3 percent on-year, the first monthly decline since at least two years, Reuters records showed, highlighting the growing toll on Chinese manufacturers from the escalating Sino-US trade war.
"After worsening across the board in July, growth in industrial production, capital spending and retail sales fell even further last month," said Martin Lynge Rasmussen, China Economist at Capital Economics in Singapore.
"With a strong rebound unlikely any time soon, we anticipate that policymakers will ease monetary conditions further in the coming months."
August saw dramatic escalations in the bitter year-long trade row, with President Donald Trump announcing new tariffs on Chinese goods from Sept. 1, and China letting its yuan currency sharply weaken days later.
After Beijing hit back with retaliatory tariffs, Trump said existing levies would also be raised in coming months, in October and December.
While the two sides are set to resume face-to-face negotiations in early October, most analysts do not expect a durable trade deal, or even a significant de-escalation, any time soon.
"August usually is a month that exporters prepare orders for Christmas products, but the figure showed that the manufacturers are not very optimistic about the prospect of Sino-US trade negotiations, and cautious about building up inventories," said Nie Wen, economist at Hwabao Trust in Shanghai.
Premier Li Keqiang said in an interview published ahead of the data on Monday that it was "very difficult" for the economy to grow at 6% or more and that it faced "downward pressure".
Several analysts said in recent weeks that China's economic growth was already testing the lower end of Beijing's full-year target of around 6-6.5 percent, which is likely to spur more policy easing. Second-quarter growth cooled to 6.2 percent, the weakest in nearly 30 years.
Traders expect a cut in the central bank's medium-term loan facility rate (MLF) as early as Tuesday, which would open the way for a reduction in the new loan prime benchmark rate (LPR) later in the week.
But room for stimulus is believed to be limited by worries about rising debt risks, with policy easing by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) expected to be more restrained than the U.S. Federal Reserve or European Central Bank.
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