BEIJING—Growth across a range of Chinese economic indicators pulled back sharply in August, as a new outbreak of the Covid-19 Delta variant and tighter government regulations on the property market hit consumer spending and the housing sector.
Retail sales, a key gauge of China’s consumption, rose just 2.5% in August from a year earlier, down sharply from July’s 8.5% year-over-year growth, according to data released Wednesday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The result marked the lowest pace of growth in a year and missed by a large margin the 6.3% increase expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
