Hong Kong
CNN
–
China’s economy began a strong start in 2023, as consumers went to implement spending three years after the strict epidemic restrictions.
GDP grown by 4.5 % in the first quarter of last year, according to L. National Office for Statistics Tuesday. That overlooked the growth of 4 % of the Reuters poll for the economists.
However, the investment is hardly skating and the youth unemployment rose to the second highest level ever, which indicates that employers in the country are still cautious about Long -term horizons.
Publishing consumption is the strongest recovery. Retail sales jumped by 10.6 % in March of the previous year, the highest level of growth since June 2021. In January to March, retail sales grew by 5.8 %, which were mainly raised by increasing revenues from the food services industry.
“A mixture of fixed height in consumer confidence as well as the incomplete release of the pent -up demand indicates to us that the recovery led by the consumer still has an area of employment,” said Louise Lu, economist at Oxford Economic.
Industrial production also showed a fixed increase. It increased by 3.9 % in March, compared to 2.4 % from January to February. (China usually combines its economic data for January and February to calculate the impact of the new lunar holiday.)
Last year, gross domestic product expanded by only 3 %, poorly missing the goal of the official growth of “about 5.5 %”, with Beijing’s approach to chaos that caused the Coronav virus in supply chains and consumer spending.
After the protests attracted the street the country, local governments have run out of money to pay huge kevid bills, the authorities finally canceled zero policy in December. Soon after the turmoil due to a natural increase, the economy began to show signs of recovery.
Last month, an official scale of non -manufacturing activity jumped to its highest level in more than a decade, indicating that the decisive services sector in the country was benefiting from the recovery in consumer spending after the end of friendly restrictions.
With the acquisition of economic recovery, investment banks and international organizations upgraded the growth expectations in China for this year. In its global economic expectations issued last week, the International Monetary Fund said that China “is back” after reopening its economy. The country’s gross domestic product has predicted 5.2 % this year and 5.1 % in 2024.
However, some analysts believe that the strong growth that was reported in the first quarter is the product of the “back loading” of the economic activity from the fourth quarter of 2022, which was weighed due to the bond restrictions and then reopening the chaos.
“Our basic view is that the Chinese economy is deflation,” said Raymond Young, the chief economist in Greater China at Anz Research.
He said that if adjustments are made to calculate the impact of late economic activity, the growth of GDP may be in the first quarter of only 2.6 %.
Some of the main data on Tuesday supports this idea. For example, the private investment was very weak.
The investment of fixed assets by the private sector increased by only 0.6 % from January to March, indicating lack of confidence among entrepreneurs. (Meanwhile, the state -led investment is offered by 10 %.)
The Chinese government resorted to sudden measures to restore confidence between private sector entrepreneurs, but the campaign inspired more nervousness from optimism.
The real estate industry of important importance is also immersed in a deep decrease. Property investment decreased 5.8 % in the first quarter. Property sales decreased by 1.8 %.
“The local economy is recovering well, but insufficient demand restrictions are still clear,” Fu Linghawi, a NBS spokesman, told a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “The prices of industrial products are still declining, and institutions face many difficulties in their profit.”
Unemployment continued to rise Among the youth.
The unemployment rate for children from 16 to 24 years was 19.6 % in March, to a third month in a row. It was the second highest level in the record, only behind the 19.9 % level reached in July 2022.
Young said that the high unemployment rate among young people indicates “recession in the economy.”
“By June, there will be a new group of graduates looking for jobs. The unemployment may increase its exacerbation if the economic momentum in China stumbles,” he added.
The Ministry of Education in China previously estimated that 11.6 million university graduates will search for jobs this year.
At the meeting of the National People’s Congress last month, Parliament in the country, the government has developed a cautious growth plan for this year, with the goal of GDP with about 5 % and the goal of creating job opportunities of 12 million.