China’s 2022 growth seen as its lowest in 40 years

BEIJING

China’s economic growth for 2022 is expected to have been among its weakest in four decades after the twin crises of the pandemic and property woes, analysts said ahead of yesterday’s GDP announcement.    

Ten experts interviewed by AFP forecast an average 2.7 percent year-on-year rise in gross domestic product (GDP) for the world’s second-largest economy, a sharp plunge from China’s 2021 growth of more than 8 percent.    

It could also be China’s slowest pace since a 1.6 contraction in 1976 -- the year Mao Zedong died -- and excluding 2020, after the Covid-19 virus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019.     

Beijing had set itself a growth target of around 5.5 percent for 2022 but this was undermined by the government’s “zero-COVID” policy, which put the brakes on manufacturing activity and consumption.     

Strict lockdowns, quarantines and compulsory mass testing prompted abrupt closures of manufacturing facilities and businesses in major hubs - like Zhengzhou, home of the world’s biggest iPhone factory - and sent reverberations across the global supply chain.    

Beijing abruptly loosened pandemic restrictions in early December after three years of enforcing some of the harshest COVID measures in the world.            

China is battling a surge in COVID cases that has overwhelmed its hospitals and medical staff.     

This is likely to reflect in 2022’s fourth-quarter growth, which will also be announced tomorrow alongside a series of other indicators such as retail, industrial production and employment.          

The World Bank forecast China’s GDP will rebound to 4.3 percent for 2023 -- still below expectations.