China reported GDP growth for 2022 that beat expectations as December retail sales came in far better than projected. GDP grew by 3% in 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday.
Kang Yi, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, cast China’s 3% growth as “relatively fast” in light of unexpected situations and in contrast to Germany, the U.S. and Japan. However, he said the global trade situation was not optimistic, and that the world economy may face stagflation.
Kang said he expected real estate would not drag down growth in 2023 as much as it did in 2022. He also said he expects consumer prices will overall be stable in 2023 and that there’s no basis for a major increase. Looking ahead to this year, JLL’s Bruce Pang expects support for the property market and the ability of people to move freely will help retail sales recover to 8% growth by the fourth quarter.
Retail sales fell by 0.2% for the year. But retail sales in December declined by 1.8% from a year ago, less than the expected 8.6% plunge predicted by a Reuters’ poll.
Within retail sales, those of catering fell by 6.3% in 2022. Sales of apparel, cosmetics and jewelry all declined for the year. Medicine was one of the bright spots, after sales surged by nearly 40% in December from a year ago.
Online retail sales of physical goods rose by 17.2% in December from a year ago, according to CNBC calculations of official data accessed through Wind. Those online sales accounted for 27.2% of total retail sales.
Industrial production rose by 3.6% in 2022. The figure rose by 1.3% in December, well above the 0.2% predicted by the Reuters’ poll.
Fixed asset investment for 2022 rose by 5.1%, slightly above the 5% expected by Reuters. Infrastructure investment on a year-to-date basis grew faster in December than in November, while investment into manufacturing slowed its growth. Real estate investment fell by 10% in 2022, a steeper drop than recorded for the year through November.
The unemployment rate in cities was 5.5.% as of December, while that of younger people ages 16 to 24 remained far higher at 16.7%.
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