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China GDP growth ends a poor year on an upbeat note
In breaking news, China’s GDP expanded at its slowest pace since the mid-1970s bar the Covid-hit 2020 year, as the world’s second-largest economy struggled under tight pandemic restrictions that were abruptly ditched late in 2022.
The economy grew 3% last year, well shy of the 5.5% pace the government had targeted at the start of 2022. The annual rate, though, topped predictions by the World Bank earlier this month that GDP expanded 2.7%.
Analysts will focus on the December quarter growth tally of 2.9%, which exceeded market forecasts of 1.8%, according to Reuters. The economy was roughly static compared with the previous three month, dodging the 0.8% retreat pundits had tipped.
The figures meant China’s GDP rose at the slowest pace in about half a century if the 2.2% expansion in the first Covid year of 2020 is excluded.
China is easily Australia’s biggest export market (worth about as much as the next handful of nations), so what happens there has an impact on our growth prospects.
Caveats always apply to official Chinese statistics. For one thing, gathering all that info from a nation as big as China within a couple of weeks of the end of the year is no small feat.
When your correspondent was resident in Beijing in the 1990s, it was notable that official numbers rarely got revised, and not much seems to have changed.
As is well-known, the Chinese government persisted longer than almost everywhere else with rolling shutdowns under its zero-Covid strategy. It abandoned the policy early last month with little warning or preparations in terms of vaccination campaigns or other medical measures.
Still, the policy shift has been widely interpreted as likely to help spur economic growth in China in 2023 and beyond. The World Bank, for instance, forecasts GDP growth will quicken to 4.3% this year and 5% the next, expectations that are now being exceeded by many private economists.
A lot hinges on China’s growth as the country is the largest consumer of most commodities, as Australian exporters of iron ore, gas, and other resources know very well.
More to come, as they say.
