China gets the travel urge again

<p>Kia ora,</p><p>Welcome to Thursday’s Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p><p>I'm David Chaston and this is the holiday edition from Interest.co.nz.</p><p>Today we lead with news that now the rules have been eased, Chinese travelers are rushing to book international trips.</p><p>But first up, American retail sales in the week before Christmas were good, being nearly +10% higher than the same week in 2021 on a same-store basis. That probably means there was real, inflation-adjusted growth.</p><p>However the residential real estate market in the US is showing no reals signs of recovery, with November pending homes sales down again, down -4% from October when no fall was anticipated. That puts them still -38% lower than year ago levels.</p><p>But away from housing, the factory sector is mixed. In <a href="https://www.dallasfed.org/research/surveys/tmos/2022/2212" target="_blank"><strong>Texas</strong></a>, their manufacturing surveys are weakish. But in the <a href="https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/research/regional_economy/surveys_of_business_conditions/manufacturing/2022/pdf/mfg_12_28_22.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Mid-Atlantic states</strong></a> they show unexpected improvement, even if it was modest.</p><p>However, both districts also reported on their service sectors, <a href="https://www.dallasfed.org/research/surveys/tssos/2022/2212" target="_blank"><strong>here</strong></a> and <a href="https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/research/regional_economy/surveys_of_business_conditions/service_sector/2022/pdf/svc_12_28_22.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>here</strong></a>, and neither had outlooks that were particularly flash. Not bad, just blah.</p><p>Japanese <a href="https://www.meti.go.jp/statistics/tyo/iip/result-1.html" target="_blank"><strong>industrial production dipped</strong></a> in November, but only down by -0.1% from the prior month. However this was the third straight month it retreated and has now turned neg