May 17, 2022
BEIJING – The Chinese economy is facing increasing downward pressures due to a more complicated and grim external environment and the domestic resurgence of COVID-19 cases, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.
NBS data showed the country’s value-added industrial output rose by 4 percent year-on-year in the January-April period, 2.5 percentage points slower than in the first three months.
Retail sales fell by 0.2 percent in the first four months, compared with the 3.3 percent increase in the first quarter, the bureau said.
Fixed-asset investments rose by 6.8 percent year-on-year in the January-April period, slower than the 9.3 percent surge in the first three months.
The surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 6.1 percent in April, slightly higher than the 5.8 percent level registered in March, the bureau said.
While China’s economy was affected severely by the pandemic, the impact of the outbreaks is temporary, according to NBS.
NBS said the fundamentals sustaining China’s steady and long-term economic growth remain unchanged, and the country has many favorable conditions to stabilize the overall economy and meet the preset annual targets.
China’s economy is likely to rebound gradually with the government’s effective measures to contain COVID-19 outbreaks and step up policy support, NBS said.