The pace of China’s economic recovery rose modestly in the second quarter after signs of sluggishness in the world’s second-biggest economy had stoked expectations of greater policy support.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, China’s gross domestic product grew 1.3 percent in the three months to the end of June, up from a revised 0.4 percent expansion in the previous quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. Economists had predicted quarter-on-quarter growth of 1 to 1.2 percent, according to polls by Bloomberg and Reuters.
Second-quarter GDP was 7-9 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with year-on-year growth of 18.3 percent in the first quarter. The high growth in the first quarter reflected the halt in economic activity in early 2020 after the Covid-19 pandemic erupted in central China and forced the government to impose a nationwide lockdown.
The NBS data release comes at a tense juncture for China’s economic planners as they try to balance financial stability with growth.
Liu Aihua, a spokesperson for the NBS, told reporters in Beijing that the economy had continued to “recover steadily” but warned that the rebound was “unbalanced”.
“We should also be aware that the coronavirus continues to mutate globally and external instabilities and uncertainties abound,” she said.
Signs of downward pressure on China’s recovery have prompted speculation that Beijing will unleash more policy support to shore up business confidence and employment and lift spending.
Issuance of special-purpose bonds, used by local governments to fund infrastructure investments, was 50 percent lower over the first five months of the year, compared with the same period in 2020.