China’s latest economic data beacon of hope for the world

Although the 4.9 percent year-on-year growth of the Chinese economy in the third quarter was below some forecasts of 5-5.5 percent, the economic data announced by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday remain encouraging.

Not only does the GDP growth signal that the robust recovery of the second quarter has been maintained, but more importantly almost all the leading economic indicators give cause for optimism that the recovery momentum can be maintained.

All sectors produced encouraging data, which reflect their strong performance for the year so far, with agriculture pushing its three-quarter growth to 2.3 percent, and industry and the service sector growing by 0.9 percent and 0.4 percent respectively.

Notably, three key industries — the high-tech industry, equipment manufacturing and the financial industry — along with information and software-related services, all recorded robust year-onyear third-quarter growth.

Also, a third-quarter rise of 7.5 percent pulled the country’s trade for the three quarters of the year to a 0.7 percent increase, after it dropped 6.4 percent in the first quarter and dipped 0.2 percent in the second. This shows China has quickly adapted to the fast changing external environment, as it registered positive trade growth with all of its major trade partners, including the United States.

Despite consumption replacing investment and trade as China’s largest growth driver five years ago, robust trade is still of vital importance for creating jobs, stoking innovation and expanding opening-up.

Likewise, so has the continuous improvement of the business environment at home. Thanks to the implementation of a series of pro-business, pro-investment and pro-innovation policies, 8.98 million jobs have been created so far this year, with the annual target being 9 million.

It is fair to say that China effectively restarted its economy in the second quarter after putting it into suspended animation during the first, in a bid to cut the novel coronavirus’ transmission chains, and it has nurtured the economy’s recovery in an all-round way in the third with pro-growth measures unfolded in targeted fields nationwide.

But while China’s recovery is clearly gathering steam, offering a hope for the struggling global economy, NBS spokeswoman Liu Aihua cautioned that “the economy is still in the process of recovery” when announcing the data at a news briefing.

Despite the across-the-board improvements, the foundation for sustainable recovery requires further consolidation due to global uncertainties and uneven performance at home, as Liu said. That requires the new “dual circulation” pattern is reinforced with supply-side structural reforms.

Nonetheless, if the country can effectively thwart a comeback of the virus, it has “the foundation, conditions and confidence to maintain the current trend” in the fourth quarter. Which means the first quarter of next year might see the world’s second-largest economy returning to where it should be.

That will have welcome and much-needed spillover effects for other economies, especially China’s neighbors, and offer some necessary life support for the global economy.