China’s economy grows still-weak 4.8 percent

China's economic growth edged up to a still-weak 4.8 percent over a year earlier in the first three months of 2022 as industrial cities shut down to fight coronavirus outbreaks, threatening to disrupt global trade and manufacturing.

Growth in the world's second-largest economy crept up from the previous quarter's 4 percent following a slump triggered by tighter controls on use of debt by China's vast real estate industry, government data showed yesterday.

Compared with the previous quarter, as other major economies are measured, growth slowed to 1.3 percent from 1.4 percent.

"More pain will come" in the current quarter, Iris Pang of ING said in a report. "Further impacts from lockdowns are imminent."

The slowdown hurts China's trading partners by depressing demand for oil, steel, consumer goods, food and other imports.

The flow of industrial goods has been disrupted by the suspension of access to Shanghai, a business center with 25 million people, and other industrial cities. Global automakers and other manufacturers have reduced or stopped production.

The disruption "will weigh on activity in April and into May, if not longer," Tommy Wu of Oxford Economics said in a report.

That is "likely to have a significant impact on global supply chains."

First quarter economic growth was below the government's annual target of 5.5 percent. Forecasters have said that will be hard to meet without large government stimulus spending.

But economists expect officials will eventually publish a growth figure consistent with official targets, as part of doubts that the numbers may be massaged for political reasons.

"The national economic recovery was sustained and the operation of the economy was generally stable,...