(Beijing) China saw its economic growth collapse in the second quarter, to only +0.4%, due to health restrictions and a crisis in real estate which heavily penalized activity, according to figures official released Friday.
Posted at 10:33 p.m.
Although subject to caution, China’s official GDP figure is still closely scrutinized, given the country’s weight in the global economy.
This decline was widely anticipated. A group of analysts polled by AFP, however, expected a much more moderate slowdown (1.6%).
In the first quarter of 2022, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.8% year on year.
Since 2020, the country has applied a zero COVID-19 policy, which consists of avoiding the occurrence of new cases as much as possible through targeted confinements, massive screenings, the placement in quarantine of people who test positive and the monitoring of movements.
In the spring, the economic capital Shanghai was locked down for two months in response to the country’s worst outbreak in two years.
A similar confinement was considered for a time in May in Beijing, capital and heart of political power.
These measures have dealt a severe blow to the economy, with many businesses, factories and businesses forced to cease operations, and supply chains under strain.
In June, retail sales, the main indicator of household spending, however rebounded strongly (+3.1% over one year), after a third month of decline in a row in May (-6.7%).
For its part, industrial production rose 3.9% year on year last month, after an unexpected rebound of 0.7% in May.
As for the unemployment rate, it stood at 5.5% in June against 5.9% a month earlier.
Particularly monitored by the authorities and calculated for urban dwellers only, the unemployment rate had reached an all-time high of 6.2% in February 2020, at the height of the epidemic, before declining.
This slowdown in growth comes in a politically sensitive year which should see, barring a cataclysm, Xi Jinping being reappointed as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the fall.
Last year, the country, then recovered from the shock of the first epidemic wave, had generated for the whole of 2021 a GDP up by 8.1%.