CHINA'S economic performance improved in April compared to March with quickening growth in industrial production and retail sales, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
But the mild improvement, together with slowing fixed-asset investment, made recovery in the world's second-largest economy softer than expected, analysts said.
China's industrial production grew 9.3 percent from a year earlier in April, up from March's 8.9 percent, according to the bureau.
Retail sales accelerated 0.2 percentage points from a month earlier to 12.8 percent in April, with sales value totaling 1.76 trillion yuan (US$284 billion).
"April's economy strengthened a bit, a natural result of recovering activity after the Chinese New Year holiday," said Li Maoyu, an analyst at Changjiang Securities Co. "But on the whole, China's performance fell short of expectation, while future risks are gathering with more uncertainties at both home and abroad."
Zhou Hao, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, said China's growth momentum remained sluggish.
"The improvement in the headline industrial growth figures is largely due to a low base effect last year," Zhou said.
In the first four months, China's fixed-asset investment increased 20.6 percent year on year, down from the gain of 20.9 percent in the first quarter.
However, investment in the property sector jumped 21.1 percent during the January-April period, rising 0.9 percentage points from that in the first quarter and indicating more active property development activity.
"As the risk of inflation diminishes in the near-term horizon, we believe the monetary policy stance has turned more supportive to growth," Zhou said. "Market liquidity conditions will likely remain relaxed in the foreseeable future and we see an increasing likelihood for the central bank to cut policy rates."
Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered, said the bank had lowered its projection of China's growth to 7.7 percent for 2013 from a previous forecast of 8.3 percent.
China's gross domestic product expanded 7.7 percent in the first three months, slowing from the pace of 7.9 percent in the final quarter of 2012.
The weakening economic growth has triggered calls for tightening policies to be lifted, especially when inflation growth remained relatively flat at 2.4 percent in April.