China's GDP Growth Rate Stagnates at 3.0% Last Year, Falling Short of Target (Update)

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Kim Hyunjung] Last year, China's economic growth rate was recorded at only 3.0% compared to the previous year. Due to the impact of the spread of COVID-19 on economic activities, it fell short of the government's initially set growth target (5.5%) by the largest margin ever.

On the 17th, the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced that China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022 increased by 3.0% compared to the previous year. Based on the fourth quarter, China's growth rate was 2.9%, exceeding experts' expectations (1.8%), but it worsened by 1 percentage point compared to the previous quarter (3.9%). This is interpreted as a result of the Chinese government abandoning the zero-COVID policy and effectively transitioning to a with-COVID approach, causing a surge in confirmed cases and damaging economic activities.

The annual growth rate was higher than in 2020 (2.2%), the first year of the COVID-19 outbreak, but it recorded the second-lowest figure since 1976 (-1.6%), the final year of the Cultural Revolution. It also fell significantly short of the government's initially set target (5.5%). The government has publicly announced growth targets since 1994, but last year was the first time the actual growth rate fell more than 2 percentage points below the target. Although the targets were missed in 1998 and 2014 as well, the gap was only about 0.2 to 0.1 percentage points, so it had been regarded as effectively achieving the target within China.