A compelling case for pragmatism
When Chinese President Xi Jinping landed in Macau, the world’s gambling capital, the air was thick with anticipation. Macau,often dubbed the “Las Vegas of the East,” is much more than a beacon of wealth and opulence.
China’s third-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at a dismal 4.9 per cent amid slow industrial activity in the month of September.
The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday that GDP grew 4.9 per cent in the quarter than a year ago, Xinhua reported.
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This was below what analysts have predicted. In the median survey, the Bloomberg analysts had predicted 5 per cent growth between the month of July and September.
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The urban unemployment rate in September was 4.9 per cent. However, that for those aged 16 to 24 remained far higher, at 14.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, for the first three-quarters of 2021, the GDP of the country grew 9.8 per cent.
“According to preliminary estimates, China’s GDP for the first three quarters of 2021 amounted to 82.313 trillion yuan ($12.8 trillion), an increase of 9.8 per cent in annual terms,” the NBS said.
The Chinese government expects overall GDP growth of over 6 per cent in 2021. In the first half of this year, the GDP increased by 12.7 per cent (growing 18.3 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter and 7.9 per cent in the second quarter).
In 2019, the Chinese economy grew 6 per cent. Last year, the growth slowed down to 2.3 per cent amid the coronavirus pandemic, which was the worst performance in 40 years.
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