China’s 2020 GDP rises by 2.3% after 6.5% expansion in Q4

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–China’s GDP grew by 2.3% year on year in 2020, its slowest pace in more than four decades, after it reported a 6.5% expansion in its economy in the fourth quarter, official data showed on Monday.

The country’s economy expanded by 3.2% and 4.9% year on year in the second and third quarters of 2020, respectively, following the 6.8% contraction in the first three months of the year.

Industrial production rose by 2.8% year on year last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

Retail sales fell by 3.9% year on year in 2020 as consumer spending faltered following the coronavirus outbreak.

Online retail sales of physical goods rose by 14.8% year on year in 2020, accounting for 24.9% of overall retail sales of consumer goods, or 4.2 percentage points higher than 2019.

The NBS in late December lowered China’s official growth rate for 2019 to 6.0%, versus the 6.1% reported earlier, citing the hit taken by domestic manufacturers from the US tariffs on Chinese goods.

The pace of China’s domestic recovery has been largely on track since the growth rebound of the second quarter of last year after the Chinese government moved quickly to stem the coronavirus outbreak which emerged in Wuhan in late 2019.