China industrial output offers fresh sign of stability

China's industrial output growth held steady in January and February, official data showed Tuesday, providing further evidence of stability in the world's second-largest economy despite slower retail sales growth.

Industrial output rose 6.3 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2017, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, slightly beating the 6.2 forecast in a Bloomberg News survey.

Retails sales, a key indicator of consumer spending, increased 9.5 percent over the period, down from 10.2 percent in the same period last year. Sales grew 10.9 percent in December.

Fixed-asset investment, a gauge of infrastructure spending, rose 8.9 percent year-on-year in January-February.

Real estate investment increased a surprising 8.9 percent in the period, up from 3.0 percent over the same stretch last year, despite tighter regulations to thwart speculators and guard against a feared property bubble.

Most data are "quite positive" and "apparently improving", NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said in a news briefing.

The figures are the latest in a slew of upbeat data including positive fourth-quarter 2016 economic growth, and encouraging February results on factory activity, imports, and factory gate prices.

"China's economy is opening the year with a good start, although pro-growth policies to shore up consumption in coming months are needed," Gao Yuwei, a researcher at the Bank of China Ltd.'s Institute of International Finance, told Bloomberg News.

"Fixed-asset investment got a boost largely because of infrastructure projects," Tommy Xie, economist at OCBC Bank, told Bloomberg, adding that "the proactive fiscal policy is playing out well".