SMU Data and Models
April 23, 2019
Chinese Industrial Production Surges in March
Written by Tim Triplett
The official economic statistics out of China show a surge in industrial production in March and a steady growth in fixed asset investment.
Once each quarter, Steel Market Update publishes the official statistics for Chinese GDP, industrial production, consumer price inflation and fixed asset investment. We don’t know the accuracy of these numbers but we include them in our reports because of the importance of China in the global steel scene. China’s economic statistics are never revised, which makes analysts suspicious considering the U.S. routinely makes revisions back decades. Figure 1 shows published data released this week for the first quarter of 2019. The GDP and industrial production portions of this graph are three-month moving averages.
