President of China Xi Jinping believes that the global economy is eventually exiting the coronavirus-driven crisis. Nevertheless, some headwinds such as inflationary risks and disruption of supply chains are putting a full-fledged recovery at stake.
In his online keynote address to the 2022 World Economic Forum, the Chinese leader underscored that the shortage of energy resources raises doubts about the global economic recovery.
At the same time, China’s authorities are confident in the positive prospects of the national economy. For the whole of 2021, China’s gross domestic product is measured at nearly 8%. Beijing managed to reach the goals of both strong economic growth and low inflation. The national economic output was beyond expectations last year despite multiple coronavirus outbreaks throughout the country, deepening cracks in the real estate market, and the alarming energy crisis. The authorities had projected the GDP at 6% for 2021 in the best-case scenario.
China’s economic growth skidded sharply to 2.2% annually in 2020 on the back of the lingering COVID-19 pandemic. The world’s second largest economy grew at the slowest pace in the last 4 decades. The total gross domestic product equaled 101.356 trillion yuan or $15.9 trillion in 2020.
Another Beijing’s achievement is moderate consumer inflation. The consumer price index increased just by 0.9% in annual terms in 2021. This metric is considerably lower than the official forecast of 3%. Back in 2020, inflation in China accelerated to 2.5% for the year, again way under the government’s forecast of a 3.5% increase.
