China’s economy grows by 8.1% to $18 trillion in 2021
BEIJING: China’s economy grew by 8.1% in 2021 to about $18 trillion despite challenges, including epidemic resurgences and a complicated external environment, the government said on Monday.
According to the official figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China’s economy grew by four per cent in the fourth quarter of last year, slowing from the 4.9% growth in the third quarter, rounding off the full year’s growth rate to 8.1% in 2021.
The GDP increase is also above the six per cent target set by the government for the year.
China’s economy posted stable growth in 2021 despite challenges including epidemic resurgences and a complicated external environment, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The country’s GDP expanded 8.1% year-on-year to 114.37 trillion yuan (about $18 trillion) last year, the NBS said on Monday. The pace was well above the government target of “above 6%,” and put the two-year average growth at 5.1%, the NBS data showed.
China’s economy has continued a stable recovery in 2021, leading the world in both economic development and epidemic control, the NBS said, while warning of the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shocks and weakening expectations amid an increasingly complicated external environment.
The Chinese economy, which was the first to be hit by a coronavirus and early to recover from the pandemic grew 2.3% in 2020, the lowest annual growth rate in 45 years.
The GDP of the world’s second-largest economy grew by 2.3% expanding to $15.42 trillion in dollar terms in 2020.
According to Monday’s NBS data, China’s fixed-asset investment went up 4.9% year on year in 2021.
Last year, the fixed-asset investment amounted to over 54.45 trillion yuan (about $8.56 trillion) as per the NBS.
The growth came in at 8% compared with the 2019 level, and the two-year average growth stood at 3.9%.
Investment by the private sectors rose seven per cent year on year to nearly 30.77 trillion yuan last year, the NBS data showed.
China’s retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of consumption growth, rose 12.5% year on year in 2021.
However, analysts say that China’s unwavering insistence on stamping out any trace of the coronavirus with a zero-Omicron approach is risking a big hit to the economy and supply chains. The analysts cited a “deeper disruption to services” as a top risk for China if the country extends containment measures to several cities.