China's Economy Grows 5.3% in First Quarter, Beating Expectations

(TMTPOST)—China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 5.3% year over year in the first quarter of 2024, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday.

Based on preliminary calculations, the value of GDP in the three months totaled 29.6 trillion yuan, up 1.6% from the last quarter of 2023, said Sheng Laiyun, the deputy director of the agency, at a press conference held by the State Council’s Information Office.

GDP growth of 5.3% in the first quarter was mainly driven by a rebound in the industrial sector and an improvement in the service sector, said Sheng.

The primary sector grew 3.3% year over year to 1.15 trillion yuan, the secondary sector surged by 6.0% to 11 trillion yuan and the third sector climbed 5.0% year over year to 17.5 trillion yuan, according to the statistics agency.

China's value-added industrial output grew by 6.1% year-on-year in the first quarter. The figure rose by 4.5% in March after a 7% increase in the first two months of the year, NBS data showed.

Sheng attributed the better-than-expected industrial growth in the first quarter to factors including policy-driven increase in business confidence and positive changes in both domestic and external demand.

The central government introduced large-scale policies on equipment renewal and reconstruction and consumer goods trade-in, which to some extent also boosted business confidence, prompting some enterprises to schedule production in advance, he told the news conference.

The data, significantly higher than the average forecast of 4.6 percent by economists polled by Reuters, reflected the resilience of the Chinese economy and the attractiveness of its vast consumer market, which also provides a robust rebuttal to some Western media's narrative of Chinese economy reaching its peak, Chinese analysts said.

Retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending, grew by 4.7% year over year in the first quarter. And the retail sales in March increased by 3.1% year over year versus the 5.5% year-over-year growth in the first two months.

Fixed-asset investment - a gauge of expenditures on items including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment - rose by 4.5% in the first three months, while in the first two months, it grew by 4.2%.

China’s surveyed non-farm unemployment rate stood at 5.2% in the first quarter of 2024, down 0.3 percentage point from the same period of last year, according to data released by NBS.

In March, the jobless figure was 5.3%, down 0.1 percentage point from February and the same period of 2023. At the end of the first quarter, the number of migrant workers amounted to 185.88 million, up 2.2% year over year.

The industrial electricity generation from enterprises above the designated size reached 747.7 billion kilowatt-hours in March, an increase of 2.8% from the same period last year, according to NBS.

In the first three months, industrial electricity generation from enterprises above the designated size totaled 22,372 billion kilowatt-hours, a 6.7% year-on-year increase. The growth of hydroelectric, wind, and solar power industries accelerated, while that of the thermal power industry slowed and nuclear power shifted from growth to decline.

The enterprises above the designated size refer to industrial enterprises with annual main business revenue of 20 million yuan or more.