China continues to witness steady recovery

China witnessed steady growth in industrial production and investment in November, while consumption was still weak amid pressures from COVID-19 outbreaks, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

China's value-added industrial output - a gage of activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors - grew by 2.2 percent in November from a year earlier after a 5 percent rise in October, figures released by the NBS showed on Thursday.

Fixed-asset investment, a gage of expenditures on items including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment, increased by 5.3 percent in the January-November period year-on-year, compared with a 5.8 percent rise in the first ten months.

Retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending, dropped by 5.9 percent year-on-year in November, after the 0.5 percent decline in October.

The surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 5.7 percent in November, compared with 5.5 percent in the previous month, according to the NBS.

Despite facing pressures from a more complicated and grimmer environment and COVID-19 outbreaks, China's economy has maintained the recovery trend in November, and the country has kept the overall economic operation within a reasonable range, the NBS said.

Looking ahead, the NBS said the country will intensify its efforts to better coordinate COVID containment and socio-economic development and steadily implement policy measures on stabilizing the economy, with a key focus on stabilizing growth, employment and prices as well as spurring market vitality.