Posted on 20 Apr 2022
China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.8% on year to Yuan 27.02 trillion ($4.24 trillion) for the first quarter of this year, with the growth rate up 0.8 percentage point from Q4 last year, indicating that the country's economy continued to recover, according to the latest release from the country's National Bureau of Statistics on April 18.
However, the 4.8% on-year growth means that the country will face more pressure to achieve its annual GDP growth target of 5.5% for the whole year. "The uncertainties in both the external and internal environment are growing, (and) economic development is facing many difficulties and challenges," NBS pointed out in the release.
Going forward, "(we) need to give more priority to 'stabilizing economic growth' and strengthening the utilization of macro policies," NBS said. China must also "continue to stabilize employment and prices, ensure people's livelihood and keep the economy running within a reasonable range."
During Q1, of the three pillars in China's economy, the tertiary sector contributed the most to total GDP at Yuan 15.3 trillion, though its growth rate was only 4% on year, slower than 6% for the agriculture sector and 5.8% for the manufacturing sector.
The tertiary sector has been hard hit by the new wave of COVID-19 which gathered pace in March, especially the rail transportation, aviation, dining and accommodation industries, which usually involve people gathering and being in close contact. On the other hand, the information transformation, software and information technology service sector still enjoyed 10.8% on year growth in the value-added industrial output, according to the NBS.
The industry sector maintained fast growth in Q1, with the mining sector's value-added output growing 10.7% on year and the manufacturing sector increasing 6.2% on year. Among the industrial products, output of new-energy vehicles, solar batteries and industrial robots were the few highlighted with exceptionally strong on-year growth rates, up 140.8%, 44.9%, 24.3% and 10.2% respectively for Q1, according to NBS data.
For the first quarter, China created 2.85 million new jobs, but the unemployment rate among townships averaged 5.5%, up from 5.1% for the whole year of 2021, and in March alone, the rate was 5.8%, according to NBS.
Though overall economic growth in Q1 beat market expectations, some observers are expecting the negative impact of the pandemic's resurgence in China to be reflected more in the economic performance of Q2.
"The impact of the pandemic on the economy will not only be shown in the March data, but will be reflected more in Q2, as many enhanced prevention and control measures were introduced from April," a Shanghai-based economist reckoned.
"There are growing difficulties for the economy to move upward amid obstacles (so) stimulus policies are urgently needed this quarter," he said, mentioning policies to improve market confidence and boost consumer spending.
Source:Mysteel Global
