18.05.202603:00:38UTC+00Offshore Yuan Extends Fall on Weak Data

The offshore yuan weakened to around 6.81 per dollar on Monday, extending the previous week’s losses as a run of weak economic data dampened sentiment. New home prices in 70 major cities fell 3.5% year-on-year in April 2026, the steepest decline since May 2025, underscoring that existing stimulus measures have yet to generate a meaningful recovery in housing demand. Industrial output also lost traction, slowing to 4.1% year-on-year in April—the weakest pace of expansion since July 2023—as disruptions associated with the Iran conflict weighed on manufacturing and export-oriented production. Retail sales growth similarly decelerated, edging up just 0.2% year-on-year, the softest reading since December 2022 and a clear sign of subdued domestic consumption. On the labor front, however, China’s surveyed urban unemployment rate eased to 5.2% in April from a more than one-year high of 5.4% in March, coming in slightly better than market expectations and marking its lowest level since January.