China has turned its factories back on after bringing the coronavirus outbreak largely under control within its borders. The question now is who will buy the goods those factories make.

Industrial production surged last month in China more than twice as fast as most economists expected, according to official data released on Friday by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. But retail sales fell even more sharply than anticipated, while orders for future exports from China have stalled.

Chinese officials are starting to acknowledge a mismatch as the economy reopens.

“The recovery of the production side may be slightly faster than the consumption side,” said Liu Aihua, the director general of the agency’s department of comprehensive statistics.

The world is watching China’s economic performance closely. It is a couple months ahead of the rest of the world in coping with the virus and then trying to reopen businesses.

Despite signs of progress, the task remains formidable. The Chinese economy shrank in the first three months of this year for the first time since Mao died in 1976. Inventories of unsold goods are piling up. Shoppers are staying home. Factories are churning out goods faster than consumers in China or overseas want to buy them.