China GDP grows record 18.3% in first quarter in coronavirus rebound
Beijing, China - China’s economy expanded at a record pace in the first quarter as the country continued its rapid recovery from last year’s pandemic-fuelled slump, official data showed.
The 18.3 per cent explosion in gross domestic product (GDP) growth was the fastest pace since quarterly records began three decades ago, but came off a historic contraction in 2020 during the depths of the pandemic.
It was also slightly short of forecasts in an AFP survey of economists.
While the coronavirus first emerged in central China in late 2019, the country was also the quickest to bounce back after authorities imposed strict control measures and consumers stayed home.
“The national economy made a good start,” National Bureau of Statistics spokeswoman Liu Aihua told reporters.
The sharp spike was partly due to ‘ incomparable factors such as the low base figure of last year and increase of working days due to staff staying put during the Lunar New Year’ holiday, said Liu.
Migrant workers were urged to remain in the areas where they work during the break owing to fears that the annual massive migration might lead to local outbreaks.
On a quarterly basis, GDP rose 0.6 per cent from the last quarter of 2020, slowing slightly, a shift analysts attributed to a wave of local virus outbreaks which triggered travel restrictions and lockdowns.
Retail outperformance
In a sign that the country’s crucial consumer sector is getting back up to pace, the figures showed retail sales surged in March, bringing first-quarter growth to 33.9 per cent as life largely returned to normal.
Industrial output rose a lessthan-estimated 24.5 per cent in the quarter.
The figures come days after officials announced that exports - and particularly imports - had rocketed in March.
Liu, however, warned that the international landscape still contained ‘high uncertainties’.
While vaccines are being rolled out around the world, the distribution is uneven and a pickup in infections is forcing governments to reimpose containment measures, holding back recovery.
The urban unemployment rate, a figure analysts have been closely watching, ticked down slightly to 5.3 per cent.
But economists expect growth drivers could change in the months ahead and have warned of an ‘uneven’ recovery so far.
“Industrial production has been taking the lead in recovery last year, and it looks a bit tired now,” said UOB economist Ho Woei Chen.
“There is expectation that with retail sales’ outperformance and a recovering job market, that there is momentum picking up in private consumption,” she told AFP, adding that this should take over the lead in growth later in the year.
Brussels, Belgium - The ratification of the EU’s massive trade deal with Britain easily cleared a key hurdle in the European Parliament, with MEPs demanding further reassurances on the thorny issue of Northern Ireland.
Meeting jointly, the trade and foreign affairs committees gave their approval with 108 votes in favour, one against and four abstentions, in a necessary step before a full session of parliament votes on the ratification of the deal.
The EU-UK trade pact has been provisionally applied since January 1, after nine months of tough negotiations and a lastminute handshake just before Christmas last year.
The UK parliament has ratified the deal. But European lawmakers were given until April 30th to have their say, with tensions simmering over the consequences of Brexit on Northern Ireland where violence has erupted.
Ties between the EU and UK have not improved since the deal was clinched, with several crossChannel arguments, including over access to stocks of the AstraZeneca vaccine against
COVID-19 pandemic.
MEPs are concerned about a protocol included in the Brexit divorce deal designed to prevent the emergence of a ‘hard border’ between Northern Ireland, which remains part of the United Kingdom, and its EU neighbour, the Republic of Ireland.
They are linking the outcome of the border argument with their decision to carry out the trade deal’s final ratification, which needs to take place before the end of the month or risk sowing economic chaos.
Lawmakers said political group leaders will decide this week whether the ratification will go to a full vote in time.
“The impact of Brexit has definitely real life consequences and I think the flare-up of violence in Northern Ireland has made this abundantly clear,” said MEP Christian Hansen, who is leading the trade pact’s ratification.
“While the protocol of Northern Ireland is certainly part of the complex mix of reasons for the flare-up, it is up to the UK government to own up to the agreement it has co-signed,” he added.