Chinese industrial output grew at the slowest pace in 17 years at the start of 2019, while fixed asset investment and retail sales growth in the world’s second-largest economy came in above estimates.

Industrial output rose  5.3 per cent year on year in January and February, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the lowest since the same period in 2002 and down from 5.7 per cent in December. The reading was shy of a Reuters poll forecasting growth of 5.5 per cent.

Attention is trained on clues on the state of the country’s economy after China recorded its slowest pace of annual growth in  almost three decades in 2018 on the impact of the US-China trade war and a crackdown on debt-fuelled corporate spending. Beijing has introduced a series of measures to stimulate growth in recent months.