China's economy accelerates as virus recovery gains steam

BEIJING—China’ s shaky economic recovery from the corona virus pandemic is gaining strength as consumers return to shopping mall sand auto dealer ships while the United States and Europe endure painful contractions. Growth in the world’ s second- larg-est economy accelerated to 4.9% over a year earlier in the three months ending in September, up from the previous quarter’ s 3.2%, official data showed Monday. Retail spending re bounded to abovep re-virus levels f or thefir st time and factory output rose, boosted by demand for exports of mask sand other medical supplies. China is the only major economy that is expected to growth is year while activity in the United States, Europe and Japan shrinks. The recovery is“broadening out and becoming less reliant” on government stimulus, Julian Evans-Pr it chard of Capi-tal Economics said in a report. He said growth is“still accelerating” heading into the present quarter. Most Asian stock markets rose on the news of increased activity in China, the biggest trading partner for all of its neigh-bors. Jap an’ sNikkei 225 index added 1.1%

while Hong Kong’ s Hang S eng climbed 0.9%. Markets in South Korea and Austra-lia also rose. China’ s benchmark Shanghai Compos-ite Index lost 0.7% on expectations the relatively strong data will reduce the like-lihood of additional stimulus that might boost share prices. China, where the pandemic began in December, became thefir st major econ-omy to return to growth after the ruling Communist Party declared the disease under control in March and began re opening factories, shops and offices. The economy contracted by 6.8% int hefir st quarter, its worst performance since at least them id-1960s, before rebounding. The economy“continued the steady recovery ,” the National Bureau of Statis-tics said in a report. However, it warned ,“the international environment is still complicated and severe .” It said China faces great pressure to prevent a resur-gence of the virus. Authorities have lifted curb son travel and business but visitors to govern-ment and other public buildings still are checked for the virus’ s tell tale fever. Trav-elers arriving from abroad must be quar-antined for two weeks. Last week, more than 10 million people were tested for the virus in the eastern

port of Qingdao after 12 cases were found there. That broke a two-month streak with no virus transmissions reported within China. Industrial production rose 5.8% over the same quarter last year, a marked improvement over thefir st half’ s 1.3% con traction. Chinese exporters are taking market share from foreign competitors that still are hampered by anti-virus controls. Retail sales rose 0.9% over a year earlier. That was up from a 7.2% con traction int hefir st half as consumers, already anxious about a slowing economy and a tariff war with Washington, put off buying. Online commerce rose 15.3%. In a sign demand is accelerating, sales in September rose 3.3%.“China’ s recovery in private consump-tion is gathering momentum ,” said Stephen Inn es of A xi Corp in a report. China has reported 4,634 corona virus death sand 85,685 confirmed cases, plus three suspected cases. Economists say China is likely to recover faster than other major econo-mies due to the ruling party’ s decision to impose the most intensive anti-disease measures in history. Those temporarily cut off most access to cities with a total of 60 million people.