China’s economy grows at slowest pace in decades

China's economy grew last year at its slowest pace in four decades as it was hammered by COVID lockdowns and a property crisis but the forecast-beating reading raised hopes for a strong recovery as it reopens.

Beijing's rigid adherence to its zero-COVID strategy of strict containment that effectively shut the country off from the world hammered business activity last year and threw supply chains offline, rattling the global economy.

The measures meant the growth came in at just three percent last year, the worst reading since a 1.6 percent contraction in 1976, when Mao Zedong died, excluding pandemic-hit 2020.

National Bureau of Statistics official Kang Yi told reporters yesterday the world's number-two economy had "faced storms and rough waters in the global environment" in 2022.

While the figure missed the government's 5.5 percent target and was well down from the previous year, it was better than the 2.7 percent predicted in an AFP survey of analysts. The fourth-quarter reading also topped forecasts, providing some optimism for 2023.

Meanwhile, retail sales shrank just 1.8 percent in December, compared with the 9.0 percent estimated, as the lifting of restrictions allowed consumers to go back to the high street.

Industrial output and fixed-asset investment also beat expectations, while unemployment fell last month from November.

"The good news is that there are now signs of stabilization, as policy support doled out towards the end of 2022 is showing up in the relative resilience of infrastructure investment and credit growth," Louise Loo, Senior Economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note.

China's economic woes last year sent reverberations across a global supply chain already struggling with waning...