China's Q1 GDP Sees Record Growth, Rises by 18.3%

BEIJING (Sputnik) - China, who is actively recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, has seen its GDP increase, experiencing an 18.3% percent year-on-year spike in the first quarter of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday

The current GDP increase is three times higher compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, when the Chinese economy expanded 6.5%. The record growth comes after the nation's economy shrank by around 6.8% last year amid the coronavirus pandemic and its negative impact on the world economy.

"According to preliminary estimates, gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter reached 24.931 billion yuan [$3.8 trillion], up by 18.3 percent year-on-year, or up by 0.6 percent over that in the fourth quarter of 2020 and 10.3 percent over that in the first quarter of 2019, with an average two-year growth of 5.0 percent at comparable prices", China's National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.

The bureau also boasted increased urban employment, compared to the first quarter of 2020.

"In the first quarter, the newly increased employed people in urban areas numbered 2.97 million. In March, the urban surveyed unemployment rate was 5.3 percent, down by 0.2 percentage point compared with that in February and a 0.6 percentage point lower than that of the same period of the previous year", the statement read.

Bureau spokesperson Liu Aihua elaborated on the labour data during a press conference, saying the country had managed to implement its annual job creation plan by 27 percent within the first three months.

At the end of 2019, the Chinese city of Wuhan was the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, which prompted the authorities to impose strict restrictions. As a result of that, last year, the Chinese economy rose by 2.3 percent, marking the lowest increase since 1976.