China’s economy grows 5.3% in Q1, beats expectations
Beijing, China – China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Tuesday.
The economy remained buoyed by government schemes to boost economic demand. The figure, up from 1.6% on the previous quarter, beat a Reuters analyst forecast of 4.6% and other economic forecasts.
"China's high-quality development has made new achievements in the first quarter. The national economy has sustained recovery momentum and got off to a good start," Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the NBS, told a press conference.
Sheng mentioned positive factors during the period such as rising production demand, stable employment and prices, and growing market confidence.
"These positive factors driving economic recovery are accumulating and strengthening, laying a good foundation for full-year growth," said Sheng.
Sheng attributed the upbeat momentum in the first quarter to the implementation of supportive government policies and intensified macro-control efforts.
China's GDP grew 5.2% last year and the country has targeted its full-year economic growth at around 5% for 2024.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, China has struggled with a slowdown in demand and a lengthy property crisis.
In the last few years, several Chinese real estate giants, notably Evergrande and Country Garden, have defaulted on their debts.
The last quarter showed few signs of improvement on this front, with property investment falling by 9.5% year-on-year.
Boosting growth, however, was China’s industrial output, up by 6.1% in the last quarter compared to the same period last year.
Retail sales also grew at an annual pace of 4.7%, whilst fixed investment in factories and equipment was up by 4.5%.
Lunar New Year festivities, which began at the end of January, are also thought to have boosted household spending across the last quarter.
Imports and exports solely from March were nonetheless down compared to the same month last year, with the latter sinking by 7.5%.
Beijing has set a GDP growth target of 5% this year, a historically low goal but one that remains ambitious in the current context.
China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, went up 6.1% year-onyear in the first quarter of this year, data from NBS showed Tuesday.
By category, output of the manufacturing sector grew by 6.7%. The high-tech manufacturing sector registered a growth of 7.5%, accelerating by 2.6 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2023.
In March, the value-added industrial output increased by 4.5% year-on-year. From January to February, major industrial enterprises nationwide realised total profits of about $128.7bn, up 10.2% year-on-year.
The Chinese government introduced large-scale policies on equipment renewal and reconstruction and consumer goods trade-in, which to some extent also boosted business confidence, prompting some enterprises to schedule production in advance, Sheng told the news conference.
Major high-tech manufacturing industry in the first quarter pulled the value-added industrial output by 1.1 percentage points, he said, highlighting the role of new growth momentum and new industries.
Boosting growth was China’s industrial output, up by 6.1% in the last quarter compared to the same period last year, while retail sales grew at an annual pace of 4.7%