Iran Press/ Asia: The Chinese economy expanded 2.9 percent during the final quarter, slowing from 3.9 percent growth during the July-September period, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed on Tuesday.
Excluding 2020, the Chinese economy in 2022 had its weakest performance since 1976, the final year of Mao Zedong’s three-decade rule.
China’s government had set a goal of 5.5 percent growth, before dropping the target from official announcements amid worsening economic conditions.
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Still, the fourth-quarter growth came significantly ahead of some economists’ expectations.
“The data exceeded expectations over the board, which means fewer risks to Q1-23 growth. We have revised our growth forecast for 2023 to 6.0 percent,” Carlos Casanova, senior economist for Asia at UBP in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera.
Casanova said, however, that the latest official statistics contained warning signs for long-term growth, including the first official decline in the population since 1961.
“Namely, China experienced a permanent loss in potential output as a result of low fertility rates during three long years of zero-COVID, resulting in a marked population decline.”
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