Chinese yuan holds near five-month low after industrial output and retail sales data

The Chinese yuan continued to fall against the dollar after industrial output and retail sales data and a statement from an economic policy meeting that vowed to keep growth targets in 2015.

China's industrial output growth slowed to a three-month low of 7.2% while retail sales growth rose to a three-month high of 11.7%.

The manufacturing output increased 8.5%, mining 4.7% and electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply 2.9%, according to official statistics.

China's retail sales growth has been on a downward trend since May and at the October rate of 7.5% it was a multi-year low.

The USD/CNY pair rose to as high as 6.1974, a five-month high, from the previous close of 6.1885.

The yuan has been sliding since late October and is down 1.3% from the eight-month peak of 6.1086 touched that month.

The Central Economic Work Conference that ended on 11 December said China's proactive fiscal policy should be stronger and its prudent monetary policy should be more focused on striking a proper balance between being tight and loose.

The GDP growth target for this year is 7.5%, and the conference did not set a target for 2015. Policymakers in China have started to use the word "new normal" to denote the new economic scenario based on which further performance may be evaluated.

The conference statement said China must "understand the new normal, adjust to the new normal and develop under the new normal".

The Australian dollar, which is even more sensitive to the Chinese data given the significance of trade relations between the two Asia Pacific majors, made slight gains on Friday, moving off the multi-year low touched the previous day.

The Aussie dollar edged higher to 0.8284 on Friday from Thursday's over four-year low of 0.8214.