China’s Industrial Activity Shows Signs of Weathering Covid Outbreaks

What’s new: China’s official value-added industrial output, a key economic indicator, rose 3.4% year-on-year in the first half of 2022, in a sign that the sector was recovering from the fallout of the country’s recent wave of Covid outbreaks.

The half included a sharp 2.9% year-on-year drop in April from 5% growth in March, and a return to growth in May when the figure increased 0.7% before accelerating to 3.9% in June.