China’s economy took a knock last month from an ongoing property market slump and sporadic Covid outbreaks, prompting economists to warn that recent easing measures may not be enough to stabilize growth. Residential property sales and the area of new housing started by developers both dropped about 20% from a year earlier, pulling down the pace of overall investment spending in the economy. Retail sales growth weakened to 3.9% in November as people stayed home amid renewed virus outbreaks. The data highlights the challenge facing Beijing as it tries to stabilize the world’s second-largest economy without giving up its campaign to reduce debt-levels in the vast property sector. The emergence of the omicron variant of the coronavirus is an added threat to the economy as China tightens restrictions to tackle […]