The former head of China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) expects the Chinese economy to see its GDP growth ease considerably in 2022.
Xu Xianchun (许宪春) said to state-owned media that China’s GDP will grow by 5.0 – 5.5% in 2022, with the services sector making a greater contribution than int he past.
Xu expects GDP growth of between 4.5 – 5% in the first half of 202, following by an uptick of growth to around 5.5% in the third quarter and perhaps even 6% in the fourth quarter.
China’s official GDP growth figure for 2021 was 8.1%, for a decade-long high.
Xu points out however that the 2021 growth figure was boosted by the low baseline set by the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the two year average growth rate for 2020 – 2021 was 5.1%.
