After decades of spurring growth in Asia-Pacific, the policy ‘Zero COVID’ and other circumstances will mean that, for the first time since 1990, China grow below the regional average: 2.8%, compared to 5.3% regionally.
A report from world Bank (WB) released today has lowered its forecast for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth from China for 2022 to 2.8 percent, a resounding drop in contrast to the 8.1 percent registered in 2021, and a less optimistic result than the entity set in April, between 4 and 5 percent.
Because Chinathe entity lowers the regional expansion forecast for 2022 from the 5 percent projected in April to a current 3.2 percent, although, excluding China (the report includes East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands, but excluding Japan and the Koreas), will achieve 5.3 percent growth.
What has happened so that entities such as the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank (ADB) -which last week already warned that, for the first time in 30 years, the giant will be surpassed in annual growth in 2022 by the Asian emerging economies- lower their forecasts in this way, it is explained by attending to several causes.
China weighed down by ‘Zero COVID’
The main economic indicators of China pointed to a good start to the year, so much so that the authorities set a growth target of 5.5% for this year in March, a rate that, although it would be one of the lowest in recent decades, exceeded the expectations of many analysts.
However, everything began to go wrong in the second quarter as a result of the restrictions and strict confinements -such as that of the eastern megalopolis of Shanghai– ordered by the Government in the face of the worst outbreaks of the COVID-19 in two years, which caused an economic standstill for weeks or even months.
The most prominent example is the evolution of Chinese GDP, which went from growing by 4.8% year-on-year in the first quarter to only 0.4% in the second, also showing a contraction of 2.6% in the comparison quarterly.
Other indicators of great importance for the Chinese economy were also affected, such as the one that measures industrial production, which fell 2.9% in April, or the PMI for the manufacturing sector, which has experienced contractions in five of the last six months. (EFE)
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