China recorded economic growth of 5% in 2024, the lowest rate in three decades excluding the Covid period. In 2024, Chinese GDP reached 134,908 billion yuan (approximately 17,867 billion euros), according to official estimates from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published Friday January 17. Beijing had set itself the objective of growth of “around 5%” in its gross domestic product (GDP), after an increase of 5.2% in 2023. Eminently political and subject to caution, the final figure for Chinese growth is “often subject to strategic adjustments to reflect internal objectives,” warned François Chimits, economist at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, at the beginning of the week. This official GDP figure nonetheless remains highly scrutinized, given the weight of the world’s second largest economy. Consumption crisis Rarely embellished in this gloomy picture, in 2024, the Asian giant’s exports have reached a record level of around 3,400 billion euros, up 7.1% year-on-year. The increase in imports also resulted in an acceleration in industrial production, which increased by 5.8% last year, compared to 4.6% in 2023. Conversely, retail sales increased. recorded a clear slowdown, increasing by 3.5% last year compared to an increase of more than 7% in 2023: a drastic slowdown signaling consumption still under pressure at a time when worried households prefer postpone their purchases.China is struggling to recover from a serious real estate crisis which is weighing on consumer morale and the finances of local authorities. The darkening of the labor market is likely to further dampen consumption. Last year, Beijing increased support measures, the most massive in recent years, to encourage millions of consumers to spend. The authorities have promised to relax their fiscal policy in 2025 and to continue its consumer support measures. The population decreased in 2024China also announced on Friday that its population had decreased for the third consecutive year in 2024, confirming a trend declining after more than six decades of growth.China had 1.408 billion inhabitants at the end of 2024, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in Beijing, against 1.410 billion the previous year. The decline was, however, less pronounced than in 2023, when the decline doubled compared to the previous year. China ended in 2016 its one-child policy imposed since the early 1980s and authorized in 2016. 2021 couples to have three children. But those measures have failed to reverse population decline in a country where a vast, cheap labor force has long served as an engine of economic growth.
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Author : News7
Publish date : 2025-01-17 09:32:13
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