According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, GDP rose 18.3% in the first three months of the year from a year ago, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. That’s slightly below expectations of a 19% rise.
Remarkably, an increase in growth comes off a contraction in the first quarter of last year. At the beginning of 2020, the economy declined by 6.8% during the height of the domestic outbreak of coronavirus. As we know, China was the first country to deal with the Covid-19 virus. The economy of the Asian giant recovered and started to rise by the second quarter of 2020.
The statistics bureau reported that GDP grew 10.3% in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2019.
Industrial production increased 14.1% in March, while analysts predicted 17.2% growth.
The country’s $16 trillion economy has been powered by its vast industrial sector over the past year. Its factories have raced to fill overseas orders for goods ranging from protective masks to work-from-home electronics, with competitive manufacturers abroad stopped by a coronavirus.
China’s unemployment rate declined in March to 5.3%
In 2021, Chinese consumers are finally opening up their wallets after months of skepticism. Retail sales increased by 34.2% in March from a year earlier. Notably, they were 12.9% higher than in March 2019 – before the coronavirus disease.
Moreover, Chinese factories are already struggling with rising raw material prices and grappling with a shortage of semiconductor chips.
Moreover, the unemployment rate declined in March to 5.3%, but China’s youngest workers aged 16 to 24 remained high 13.6%.
According to Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, young people’s employment problem still needs a period of time to be absorbed.
Remarkably, although the U.S. economy has reduced the most since 1946 last year, it is still the world’s largest at around $21 trillion, when not adjusted for inflation.
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