Posted on 18 Jan 2023
China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3% on year to reach Yuan 121 trillion ($17.9 trillion) over 2022, though the growth rate was below the prior year's 8.1%, indicating that the country's economic recovery slowed last year, the latest data from the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on January 17 suggests.
For the October-December quarter, the country's GDP rose by 2.9% on year to Yuan 30.8 trillion, with the increment being 1 percentage point smaller than that in the third quarter, the data showed.
During 2022, China faced severe challenges regarding economic development – as a mismatch emerged between domestic supply and demand – while the geopolitical environment worsened further, according to NBS. As such, the annual GDP growth was lower than Beijing's target of 5.5% for 2022, Mysteel Global noted.
"Nonetheless, China stood up to the pressure from multiple fronts and successfully achieved steady growth in the economy last year, with the high-quality development stepping up to a higher level," NBS noted.
Of the three pillars in China's economy, the tertiary sector contributed the most to total GDP with Yuan 63.9 trillion during the past year, though its on-year growth rate was only 2.3%, slower than the 4.1% for the agriculture sector and 3.8% for the industrial sector.
In the tertiary sector, the value-added output in modern services enjoyed the most prominent growth in 2022, as productivity in the information transformation, software and information technology service industry jumped 9.1% on year, while the financial sector saw an on-year rise of 5.6%, NBS data showed.
Regarding the industrial sector, the value-added output among sizable miners and manufacturers rose 7.3% and 3% on year respectively in 2022, with that among the high-tech manufacturers posting a marked increase of 7.4% on year. In terms of specific products, the output of new-energy vehicles continued to record substantial on-year growth at 97.5%, the highest among all manufactured goods, according to NBS data.
The expansion of industrial output gained some support from China's fixed asset investment in 2022, which increased by 5.1% on year to Yuan 57.2 trillion, with investment in the infrastructure construction and manufacturing sectors up by 9.4% and 9.1% on year respectively, the NBS data showed. Among the total, total investment in the high-tech industries rose significantly by 18.9% on year.
On the other hand, China's wholesale revenue of consumer goods in 2022 dipped 0.2% on year to Yuan 43.97 trillion, the data showed. Food and beverage revenue nationwide dropped by a large 6.3% on year due to the frequent COVID-related disruptions to this business, Mysteel Global noted.
China created 12.06 million new jobs last year, higher than the government's target of 11 million, NBS noted. However, the number of new jobs was some 630,000 lower than that in 2021, and the unemployment rate among Chinese townships averaged 5.5% by the end of 2022, up 0.4 percentage point on year.
Source:Mysteel Global
