A workshop in Weifang City, Shandong Province of China, is bustling with activity as an employee works on the assembly line of intelligent machinery. Recently released official data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics shows that the country’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter of the year. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.3% compared to the same period last year, surpassing the 4.6% growth forecasted by economists.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, China’s GDP increased by 1.6% in the first quarter, exceeding the 1.4% expectation from a Reuters poll. Beijing has set a growth target of around 5% for the year 2024. Despite this positive news, China experienced weak export and inflation data earlier in the month. Industrial output for March grew by 4.5% year on year, falling short of the 6% expectation. Retail sales also saw a modest increase of 3.1% year on year, lower than the anticipated 4.6%.
Unemployment in major cities in China slightly decreased to 5.2%, breaking a three-month trend of increases following the release of this data. The offshore yuan initially strengthened before retracing from its five-month high against the US dollar after this news was reported.
This is a developing news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
As workers focus on their tasks at an assembly line workshop in Qingzhou, Weifang City, Shandong Province of China, recent official data shows that China’s economy grew faster than expected in Q1 compared to last year’s same period with GDP growing by 5.3%. This is an improvement from Q4’s expansion rate and surpasses economists’ forecasted growth rate of 4.6%. According to Beijing’s growth target for 2024 around 5%, Morgan Stanley revised its real GDP forecast for China up to
