Chinese Economy Grew the Lowest since 1990
China has officially declared that its economy has grown at 6.6 percent in 2018. It is the slowest growth of the Chinese economy since 1990.
The experts highly anticipated this official announcement all over the world amidst on-going talks with the United States on trade and tariffs.
Economists also have predicted that the Chinese economic growth would fall to this level from the 2017 level of 6.8 percent.
The fourth quarter has seen the lowest 6.4 percent growth, as expected. The fourth quarter growth in 2017 was 6.5 percent.
As per Chinese official data, there also few spots where the second largest economy has the edge. Industrial output grew 5.7 percent in December from a year earlier as the economists have expected growth of 5.3 percent. And the November’s industrial output was 5.4 percent.
Retail sales data rose 8.2 percent in December on-year, in line with a forecast and rose from November’s 8.1 percent gain.
Helen Zhu, head of China equities at BlackRock said the exporters are now trying to get the goods out of China to the United States before the new tariff regime starts. Though the economy is experiencing a deceleration, the vital hope for China is the exports.
She also told that she had expected support to the economy by increased Chinese Consumption and tax cuts. But, she reaffirmed that the growth for 2019 would be lower than the figures of 2018.
It is curious to know that some people have their reservations regarding accepting the Chinese official records of GDP growth. The veracity of the figures issued by the Chinese agency is yet to be proved.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, a research house said the official GDP figures from China are so stable that it won’t be a proper picture of Chinese economic preference.
He also added that the service sector had been strengthened in the last quarter.
Chinese statistics bureau chief Ning Jizhesaid that the trade war with the United States has affected the domestic economy, but the impact is manageable. As per one report, the uptrend in the Chinese economy is happening due to the rise in the domestic demand.
Even before the China- U.S trade war, China was trying to manage the slowdown in its economy.
China is now trying to balance a crackdown on high debt levels while also maintaining economic growth. It is also trying to reduce the reliance on the debt would benefit the economy in the long run, it likely means a far slower pace of growth than the country has seen in recent years.
While as per the official data released the Chinese economy fared well for most of the months in 2018, but now the economy appears to be slowing down.
The two largest economies after a series of conflicts between them on trade practices finally agreed to make a deal out of this. China has offered a six-year boost in imports during its ongoing talks with the U.S., as per the sources. China also has promised to buy more goods from the United States which will be working as a boost Trumps’ electoral promises.
