China’s economy grew 3 percent in 2022, official data shows

Economic performance among weakest in the country’s modern history.

China’s economy grew 3 percent in 2022, one of the weakest performances in the country’s modern history, according to government data.

The Chinese economy expanded 2.9 percent during the final quarter, slowing from 3.9 percent growth during the July-September period, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed on Tuesday.

Excluding 2020, the Chinese economy in 2022 had its weakest performance since 1976, the final year of Mao Zedong’s three-decade rule.

Still, the fourth quarter growth came significantly ahead of economists’ expectations.

“The data exceeded expectations over the board, which means fewer risks to Q1-23 growth. We have revised our growth forecast for 2023 to 6.0 percent,” Carlos Casanova, senior economist for Asia at UBP in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera.

Casanova said, however, that the latest official statistics contained warning signs for long-time growth, including the first official decline in the population since 1961.

“Namely, China experienced a permanent loss in potential output as a result of low fertility rates during three long years of Zero-Covid, resulting in a marked population decline.”

China’s strict “zero-COVID” pandemic policy weighed heavily on the world’s  second-largest economy toward the end of last year, with lockdowns hobbling economic activity in major industrial centres including Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Beijing made an abrupt shift away from the strategy last month after unprecedented mass protests across the country.

China earlier this month reopened its borders after three years of international isolation, after earlier scrapping most of its draconian restrictions.