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Chinese economy bounces to 3.2% growth in second quarter after shrinking in first
The Chinese economy was also the first major economy to gradually reopen after bringing the outbreak under control even as it rages worldwide.
China’s economy grew by 3.2 percent between April and June, a sign of substantial recovery following a record slump in the first quarter where the second-largest economy in the world shrank for the first time in decades because of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
It is the first major world economy to show growth following the impact of the pandemic.
The Chinese economy was also the first major economy to gradually reopen after bringing the outbreak under control even as it rages worldwide.
China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 3.2 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2020, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Thursday.
The new economic figures will be closely monitored globally as Beijing restarts its economy after lifting Covid-19-related lockdowns and resumes manufacturing full-throttle.
“In the first half of this year, the country’s GDP stood at 45.66 trillion yuan (about 6.53 trillion U.S. dollars) amid Covid-19 impact, down 1.6 percent year on year,” official news agency, Xinhua reported quoting NBS data.
In the first three months of the year, the $14 trillion Chinese economy shrank 6.8%, the worst decline for a single quarter on record since China started publishing GDP figures in 1992.
It was also the first time China reported an economic contraction since 1976.
“The fundamentals of China’s long-term sound economic growth have not changed and will not change,” Chinese President Xi Jinping told global CEOs in a letter published in state media.
“The second-quarter performance was better than expected, as production on the supply side picked up and investment caught up. The economy in the latter half of the second quarter moved from post-virus recovery to periodic climbing up to a certain extent,” Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association, told state media.
Earlier, the IMF had projected that only a few economies including China’s would grow by 1 percent in 2020.
“We are projecting that only a very small number of economies in Asia and the Pacific will actually grow this year, including China by 1.0 percent. Most economies in the region are expected to contract in 2020, and some quite sharply—Korea by around 2 percent, India by 4.5 percent, Japan by 5.8 percent, and some other economies by even more, given their dependence on remittances, tourism, and/or commodities,” Tao Zhang, IMF’s deputy managing director said on July 10.
In May, Premier Li Keqiang had pledged a package of 4 trillion yuan (US$559 billion) in 2020, the largest economic rescue plan in its history, in an effort to save jobs put at risk by the pandemic.
