(Bloomberg) -- Caterpillar Inc. added further confirmation to China’s downtrodden economic outlook, saying sales of its key machines used on construction sites across the world’s second-largest economy is even worse than the company forecast about three months ago.

Chief Executive Officer Jim Umpleby said during Tuesday’s earnings call that the company anticipates further weakness in sales of the machines most used for Chinese construction projects. The view follows the CEO’s downbeat comments on April 27, when he said the total share of sales from the Asian nation would be below its normal expected range of 5% to 10%.

“We now expect further weakness as the 10-ton and above excavator industry has declined even more than we anticipated,” Umpleby said in the call.

A raft of economic data from China has indicated that the country’s rebound from pandemic-related closures has been taking longer than anticipated.

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