China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew
by 8.1 percent last year, the largest jump since 2011, data from the National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday, Jan17.
The expansion is slightly above the IMF and World Bank's expectations of
8-percent growth and beyond the 6-percent target set by the government.
Facing challenges brought by the pandemic, China has seen its economic
activities cool down after a strong rebound in the first half of 2021. From October to December, the country's
economy grew by 4 percent from a year earlier, a further deceleration from the
18.3-percent jump in the first quarter, according to NBS. Despite beating Reuters' forecast of 3.6-percent and Bloomberg's 3.3-percent,
the fourth-quarter pace was still the weakest in one and a half years, leaving
room for speculation on further monetary stimulus.
To counter the slowing economic growth, China cut its reserve requirement ratio
by 50 basis points in December. The cut, the second such move of the year,
would release 1.2 trillion yuan ($190 billion) in long-term liquidity, said
People's Bank of China (PBOC) at the time.
Also, China lowered its one-year loan prime rate (LPR) in December and cut
the rate of 700 billion yuan's worth of one-year medium-term lending facility
(MLF) loans to some financial institutions on Monday. Both rates had not
changed since April 2020.
In the meantime, the country pledged to safeguard macroeconomic stability and
keep major economic indicators within an appropriate range in 2022, according
to the annual Central Economic Work Conference at the end of last year.
China's GDP in 2021 topped 114.367 trillion yuan, according to data from the NBS, with its two-year average growth standing at 5.1 percent.
The GDP per capita "surpassed the world's average," said Ning Jizhe,
head of the NBS, during a press conference on Monday.
"According to preliminary estimates, the world's GDP per capita in 2021 will be around $12,100."
However, “China is still the largest developing country in the world." China's GDP per capita passed the $10,000 benchmark in 2019. Its GDP per capita still lags behind high-income countries like the U.S. and Japan.
China's industrial output jumped by 4.3 percent year on year in December,
showing a rebound from the 3.8-percent increase in the previous month,
according to the NBS.
As productions benefiting from the country's strict zero-COVID strategy, China's
value-added industrial output in 2021 grew by 9.6 percent.
The country's effective outbreak prevention and control work enabled it to
maintain the stable operation of industrial chains, said Wang Dan, a chief
economist at Hang Seng Bank, attributing China's strong export growth to
efficient factory output.
"The global dependence on Chinese production has continued to increase. We expect the trend to continue in 2022."
However, retail sales missed expectations in December, with only a 1.7-percent increase from a year earlier.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected China's retail sales of consumer goods
to "grow by 3.7 percent after rising 3.9 percent in November."
The retail sales in 2021 rose by 12.5 percent, according to the NBS. The
two-year average growth stands at 3.9 percent.
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