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China GDP
EconomyChina Economy

China GDP: economy grew by 4.9 per cent in third quarter of 2020

  • China’s growth picks up from 3.2 per cent in the second quarter and a contraction of 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020
  • Industrial production and retail sales grew by 6.9 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively from a year earlier as investment turned positive for the first time this year

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China GDP: economy grew by 4.9 per cent in third quarter of 2020

China GDP: economy grew by 4.9 per cent in third quarter of 2020
Orange Wang
China’s economy grew by 4.9 per cent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, accelerating from growth of 3.2 per cent growth in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Monday.
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The world’s second-largest economy has recovered strongly after shrinking by 6.8 per cent in the first three months of the year – the first official contraction since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 – due to the lockdown efforts aimed at stemming the tide of the coronavirus pandemic.

Third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth was below the 5.5 per cent gain projected in a survey of analysts by Bloomberg.

“Year-on-year growth was up from 3.2 per cent in quarter two, showing that the economic recovery from Covid-19 continues, led by strength in industry driven by robust investment and exports. But GDP growth was lower than our forecast of 5.3 per cent year on year, reflecting slowing infrastructure investment growth and lingering softness in corporate investment and consumption,” said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics.

In other figures released by the NBS on Monday, industrial production, a gauge of activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors, grew by 6.9 per cent in September from a year earlier after a 5.6 per cent rise in August. This was above the median forecast of the Bloomberg survey of a 5.8 per cent rise.

Retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending in the world’s most populous nation, grew by 3.3 per cent, improving further from the 0.5 per cent increase in August, and above the projection of a 1.7 per cent rise estimated in the Bloomberg survey.
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