China’s GDP contracted 1.6 percent for the first time in the first half of a year in nearly three decades, battered by COVID-19 headwinds. But in the second quarter, the economy grew 3.2 percent, reversing from a 6.8-percent contraction in the first quarter, a sign of the resilience deeply rooted in China’s economy amid a global freefall when the coronavirus pandemic has plunged most major economies into a near standstill.
Retail sales plummeted 11.4 percent year-on-year to 17.22 trillion yuan ($2.46 trillion) in the first half. Industrial added-value contracted 1.3 percent, while fixed-asset investment slumped 3.1 percent to 28.16 trillion yuan, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.
The unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in June, a 0.2 percentage point decrease compared with May, the data showed.
“The second-quarter performance was better than expected, as production on the supply side picked up and investment caught up. The economy in the latter half of the second quarter moved from post-virus recovery to periodic climbing up to a certain extent,” Tian Yun, vice director of the Beijing Economic Operation Association, told the Global Times.
In June alone, retail sales sank 1.8 percent year-on-year, narrowing from a 2.8 percent contraction in May. Industrial value-added rose 4.8 percent, marking the third consecutive month of renewed growth.
Despite what might be the low single-digit growth in the second quarter, China could still achieve best-in-class results among the world’s major economies and lead the global recovery in the wake of the pandemic, analysts said.
