China's latest economic data on Monday mirrored how seriously the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the country's industrial and service sectors.
Industrial output declined by 2.9 percent in April from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed, after a 5-percent increase in March.
April retail sales meanwhile dropped by 11.1 percent year on year, marking the biggest downturn since March 2020, and further shrinking after a 3.5-percent drop the previous month, according to the NBS.