China's central bank unexpectedly lifted its rates on open market operation on Thursday after the Federal Reserve tightened its policy rates.
Elsewhere, statistical data released on Thursday showed that industrial production growth weakened in November as measures taken to control pollution weighed on activity. Meanwhile, retail sales grew at a faster pace on domestic consumption.
The People's Bank of China raised its 7-day and 28-day reverse repo rates by 5 basis points to 2.50 percent and 2.80 percent, respectively. A similar action was last taken in mid-March.
The bank raised the rate on its Medium-term Lending Facility by 5 basis points to 3.25 percent.
The PBoC said this represented the market's normal response to the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike.
Industrial production grew 6.1 percent year-on-year in November, slower than the 6.2 percent increase seen in October, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. This was the weakest expansion in three months but in line with expectations.
Meanwhile, annual growth in retail sales improved to 10.2 percent from 10 percent in October. Economists had forecast a 10.3 percent annual increase.
At the same time, fixed asset investment growth continued to show a downward trend. During January to November, fixed asset investment climbed 7.2 percent compared to 7.3 percent increase in January to October period.
Further, data showed that real estate investment increased at slower pace of 7.5 percent year-on-year in January to November following the 7.8 percent growth in January to October period.
Industrial output growth has continued to soften, most likely as a result of disruptions from the pollution crackdown in the north-east of the country, Julian Evans-Pritchard, an economist at Capital Economics, said.
Looking ahead, the economist expects additional headwinds to economic activity from the cooling property sector and slowing credit growth.
Data from the Ministry of Commerce today showed that foreign direct investment grew sharply by 90.7 percent from a year ago in November. The economy attracted CNY 124.9 billion yuan of FDI.
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May 15, 2026 15:25 ET Apart from the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair, the main news on the economics front this week included key price data from the U.S. and the first quarter economic growth figures from major economies. Both consumer prices and producer costs have started to reflect the effect of supply shocks due to the Middle East conflict. In Europe, GDP data was in focus, while inflation data from China dominated the news flow in Asia.