China: Covid, autos and chip shortages hit May activity data

Subscribe to THINK Cars hit retail sales, not Covid The timing of the Covid resurgence in China is important. Though retail sales slowed down to 12.4% year-on-year in May from 17.7% a month ago, this was mainly due to very slow growth in car sales of 6.3% YoY. Other sales items were largely unscathed by this new wave of the virus, which came after the Golden Week holiday in the first week of May. As such, jewellery sales grew 31.5% YoY. Industrial production sees double whammy from Covid and automobiles In Guangdong province, an area which specialises in electronic manufacturing,…