Mainland second-quarter GDP slows to 0.4 percent, reflecting geopolitical challenges and extensive, country-wide COVID-19 lockdowns.
China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) slowed to show 0.4 percent growth in the second quarter from a year earlier as the mainland economy faced severe headwinds on a number of fronts, the National Bureau of Statistics of China said in a media release published Friday.
«This year, facing increasingly complicated and challenging international environment, as well as multiple and sporadic local outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the economic development was extremely unusual with significantly increased adverse impacts, and the economy in the second quarter was under noticeable downward pressure with serious impacts from unexpected factors,» the bureau indicated.
It added that major economic indicators «plunged» in April, prompting a number of subsequent policy measures to counteract the decline, moves the bureau characterized as «timely». After that, the pace of the decline seen decelerated in May, and the economy recovered in June. Preliminary estimates also showed that GDP in the first half was up 2.5 percent from a year earlier.
