China December Factory Output Misses Forecast, Rises 5.9% Year-On-Year

China’s industrial output rose 5.9 percent in December from a year earlier, missing market expectations, as its manufacturers struggle with persistently sluggish demand at home and abroad, excess capacity and high borrowing costs. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a 6.0 percent increase in factory output, easing from November’s 6.2 percent.

Full-year industrial output rose 6.1 percent year-on-year, while retail sales rose 10.7 percent.

Retail sales climbed 11.1 percent in December from a year earlier, compared with an 11.3 percent rise expected by the market and November’s 11.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics of China said Tuesday.

Fixed-asset investment growth, a crucial driver of the economy, grew 10.0 percent in 2015 from the previous year, missing market expectations. Economists had expected investment growth would come in at 10.2 percent, the same rate as in the first 11 months of 2015.

Growth in real-estate investment slowed to 1.0 percent in 2015 from the previous year, compared with an increase of 1.3 percent in the January-November period.

Other data Tuesday showed China’s economy grew 6.9 percent in 2015, its slowest rate of expansion in a quarter of a century, weighed down by weak exports, factory overcapacity, a soft property market, high debt levels and slowing investment.