CHINA'S economy improved mildly in April from the previous month as growth in industrial production and retail sales quickened, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

But combined with slowing fixed-asset investment, the world's second-largest economy's recovery was softer than expected, analysts said.

China's industrial production rose 9.3 percent from a year earlier in April, up from March's 8.9 percent, the bureau said. Retail sales, a general gauge of domestic consumption demand, grew 12.8 percent in April, quickening 0.2 percentage point from March, to 1.76 trillion yuan (US$284 billion).

"The economy in April 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 expectations, and future risks may emerge especially with more uncertainties at home and abroad."

Zhou Hao, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd, agreed with Li, saying that the improvement in the headline industrial growth figure is largely due to last year's low base.

In the first four months of this year, China's fixed-asset investment rose 20.6 percent year on year, lower than the 20.9 percent gain in the first quarter.

But investment in the property sector jumped 21.1 percent during the four months, up 0.9 percentage point from that in the first quarter.

China's economy grew 7.7 percent in the first three months, slowing from 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 was relatively flat at 2.4 percent in April.

"As the risk of inflation diminishes over the near term, we believe the monetary policy stance has turned more supportive to growth," Zhou said. "Market liquidity conditions will likely be relaxed in the foreseeable future, and we see an increasing likelihood for the central bank to cut rates."

Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered, said the bank has cut its outlook for China's 2013 growth to 7.7 percent from 8.3 percent previously.