BEIJING: Amid COVID-19 outbreaks and a complex international environment, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 2.5 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2022, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday. In the second quarter, the country’s GDP grew 0.4 percent year-on-year, NBS data showed. China’s economy encountered increasing downward pressure in the second quarter due to unexpected factors both at home and abroad, but with recent supportive policies and getting COVID-19 outbreaks under control, the economy has the momentum to stabilize and rebound, Fu Linghui, spokesperson of NBS said on Friday.
Economic recovery in January and February was better than expected, while major economic indicators saw a significant decline in March and April following the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis and COVID-19 outbreaks, but there have been more improvements since May, he said. China’s value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, went up 3.4 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, led by high-tech manufacturing’s 9.6 percent year-on-year growth. In June alone, the growth of industrial output, which is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan ($2.96 million), quickened to 3.9 percent year-on-year, expanding by 3.2 percentage points from that in May, according to the NBS.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN news exchange item
