The coronavirus pandemic continues to dominate the headlines for more than 10 months. Moreover, the pandemic is not over yet and it would take at least several months to deal with all hotspots. Hopefully, the public, as well as private companies, are working hard to vaccinate people in a short period of time.
Nevertheless, in the case of many countries, it won’t be easy to cope with all problems in 2021. Moreover, rich countries have the opportunity to provide some financial assistance to developing countries.
As a reminder, China has the second-largest economy in the world, and this fact once more the importance of its economy.
Despite all challenges, the country’s economy grew 2.3% in 2020 as the world struggled to contain the coronavirus pandemic. According to the information provided by the National Bureau of Statistics, gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 6.5% in the fourth quarter from a year ago. Interestingly, this result surpassed expectations.
It is worth mentioning that, Chinese consumers remained reluctant to spend, as retail sales contracted 3.9% for the year. Importantly, retail sales for the fourth quarter rose 4.6% from a year ago.
Interestingly, online sales of consumer goods rose at a comparatively rapid pace of 14.8% in 2020 according to the statistics bureau. However, the proportion of overall retail sales held fairly steady at around one-fourth.
Chinese Economy and coronavirus pandemic
As stated above, the pandemic created a lot of challenges for countries around the world. Importantly, Chinese authorities have been trying to increase the economy’s reliance on domestic demand, rather than more traditional growth drivers such as investment.
People should take into account that, for 2020 consumption accounted for 54.3% of GDP. As a reminder, that’s lower than 57.8% of GDP that was initially reported for 2019.
It is no secret that the coronavirus pandemic affected the world’s second-largest economy. Importantly, the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. Authorities implemented measures to control the virus. Unfortunately, the economy contracted by 6.8% in the first three months of 2020. Nevertheless, China’s economy returned to growth in the second quarter.
As mentioned earlier, the pandemic continues to affect the countries and it will take time to take care of all issues. China should work with other countries to mitigate the problems caused by the pandemic. This way it will be easier to support the global economy.
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