CHINA’S ECONOMY MISSES FORECASTS AS YOUTH JOBLESS RATE HITS A NEW HIGH

Mon 17 July 2023:

The Chinese economy grew slower than predicted in the second quarter, while youth unemployment reached a new high.

Official figures revealed that GDP increased by 0.8 percent in April-June compared to the previous quarter, despite weak domestic and international demand.

The country’s youth unemployment hit a new record high of 21.3% in the second quarter. This means more than one in five of those between 16 to 24 years old are unemployed.

Economists polled by Reuters expected China’s GDP to grow by 7.3% during the second quarter of the year. In the first quarter, the country’s economy had grown 4.5% compared to the previous year.

Retail sales in June climbed 3.1 percent year-on-year, while industrial production output rose by 4.4 percent.

Economists had widely expected China’s overall economy to grow by more than 7 percent.

Still, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said the results pointed to the “good momentum” of the economy’s post-pandemic recovery.

“By quarter, the GDP grew by 4.5 percent year on year in the first quarter and 6.3 percent in the second quarter,” NBS spokesman Fu Linghui said.

“Market demand gradually recovered, production supply continued to increase, employment and price were generally stable, and residents’ income grew steadily.”

In a further sign of China’s patchy recovery, joblessness among Chinese youth rose to a record 21.3 percent in June, up from 20.8 percent in May, NBS data showed.

Beijing has set its growth target for 2023 at about 5 percent, which is conservative relative to the growth trend of recent decades.

The country’s second-quarter GDP data could be masking troubles in its economy because the of the low base last year when the country was still mired in on-off COVID-19 lockdowns, Vishnu Varathan, the head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank, wrote in a Monday note before the data release.

Varathan added in the note that growth momentum in China has slowed. “Once base effect distortions are backed out, China’s economy remains dismal,” he added.

After a brief upswing, China’s economy has found it difficult to recover from three years of irregular COVID-19 lockdowns, signaling a poor performance for the second-largest economy in the world this year.

Beijing has set a 5% GDP growth target for this year, up from the 3% growth recorded in 2022.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

______________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent