China takes victory lap over economic recovery to pre-coronavirus pandemic growth rates

The Chinese economy officially grew by 2.3 per cent in 2020, crowning a remarkable recovery from extreme coronavirus lockdown conditions in the early part of the year

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Life has generally returned to normal in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus was first reported. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:01pm, 18 Jan 2021Updated: 8:30am, 19 Jan 2021

China’s economy roared back to pre-pandemic growth rates in the fourth quarter of last year as its industrial engines fired up to meet surging demand for exports, pushing the full-year expansion beyond estimates and propelling its global advance.

Gross domestic product climbed by 6.5 per cent in the final quarter from a year earlier, pushing growth to 2.3 per cent for the full year. That leaves the world’s second-largest economy driving global growth and potentially passing the GDP of the United States sooner than expected.

The recovery from the biggest slump on record was engineered by getting Covid-19 under control and deploying fiscal and monetary stimulus to boost investment.

A 6.8 per cent contraction in the first quarter because of Covid-19-related lockdowns was seen as a sign of worse things ahead by many analysts, some of whom expected a near-total collapse of the Chinese economy.

But on Monday, 361 days after those initial lockdowns, the central government announced that the turnaround was complete. The national economy is now growing more quickly than it was before the pandemic.