Headline shares of the Mainland China equity market declined on Friday, 14 December 2018, as a slew of Chinese economic data reinforced worries about the country's slowdown. China's industrial-production growth slowed to 5.4% in November, the lowest number since the start of 2016, when economic sluggishness sent global markets swooning. Meanwhile, China's retail-sales increase was 8.1%, the least in 15 years. Only fixed-asset investment showed improvement by posting a 5.9% increase for the year through November, versus a 5.7% increase in 2018's first 10 months. In late afternoon trade, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.6%, or 15 points, to 2,619, meanwhile the Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, shed 0.9%, or 12.70 points, to 1,348.24. The blue-chip CSI300 index was down 0.9%, or 27.69 points, to 3,192.

ECONOMIC NEWS: China's fixed-asset investment up in November --China's industrial output in November grew 5.4% year-on-year, 0.5 percentage points lower than October, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday. Fixed-asset investment growth was 5.9% in the first 11 months, quickening by 0.2 percentage points compared with the first 10 months.

China sees stable FDI inflows in first 11 months -- Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland stayed basically stable in the first 11 months of the year, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Thursday. A total of 54,703 new overseas-funded companies were established during the period, up 77.5% year-on-year, MOC data showed. FDI from January to November reached 793.3 billion yuan, down 1.3% year-on-year. In US dollar terms, the FDI stood at $121.3 billion, up 1.1% year-on-year. In November alone, the number of new overseas-funded enterprises increased 11.1% year-on-year to 5,158, according to the data. FDI in November fell 26.3% year-on-year to 92.1 billion yuan. In dollar terms, the investment was $13.6 billion, down 27.6% year-on-year. In the first 11 months, some 241 billion yuan of foreign investment went to the manufacturing sector, up 16% from a year earlier. Funds pumped into high-tech manufacturing jumped 30.2% to 78.1 billion yuan.

CURRENCY NEWS: China yuan strengthened against greenback on Friday, after central bank stronger mid-point rate. Prior to market opening, the People Bank of China set the yuan reference rate at 6.875, strengthened by 19 basis points from previous day mid-point rate of 6.8769. In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2% from the central parity rate each trading day.