March data point to a broad-based slowdown of Chinese economy

China released the full set of economic indicators for March this week, including trade, monetary and real activity data. Overall, the data point to a broad-based slowdown in the economy. 

While market expectations had already been reduced after the poor trade growth figures and weaker money and total financing data, the poor domestic activity data still came as a large negative surprise. 

In particular, industrial production (IP) growth slowed markedly to 5.6% y/y, the lowest since February 2009; the decline was broad based and led by production of electricity & power and general equipment in manufacturing. Fixed asset investment decelerated further to 13.5% y/y YTD, from 13.9% in Jan-Feb. Retail sales growth also declined to 10.2%, from 10.7% in Jan-Feb.