China’s Economy Grows 5 Percent in First Half of 2024, Signaling Steady Recovery

Beijing, The Gulf Observer: China’s economy expanded by 5 percent in the first half of 2024, indicating a steady recovery despite facing challenges both domestically and internationally. This growth reaffirms China’s role as a crucial driver of global economic progress.

Key sectors showed strong performance. The country reported a record high in trade value for goods, growing by 6.1 percent. Additionally, China secured another bumper harvest of summer grains. The production of smart and green products, including integrated circuits, service robots, new energy vehicles, and solar panels, increased at a double-digit rate, establishing them as new engines of growth.

Domestic and external demands both improved significantly. In the first half of the year, final consumption expenditure contributed 60.5 percent to economic growth, driving GDP growth by 3.0 percentage points. Gross capital formation, an investment measure, contributed 25.6 percent to economic growth, adding 1.3 percentage points to GDP growth. Net exports of goods and services accounted for 13.9 percent of economic growth.

China’s Economy Grows 5 Percent in First Half of 2024

Policy support played a crucial role in sustaining economic stability. The effects of large-scale equipment upgrades and policies encouraging the replacement of old consumer goods became evident. Special-purpose bonds and ultra-long special treasury bonds, along with coordinated policy measures, provided favorable conditions for stable economic operations.

Achieving this growth rate is notable given the increased uncertainty and complexity in the global environment, marked by geopolitical conflicts and international trade frictions.

Despite facing challenges, the Chinese economy is in a crucial phase of recovery and transformation. The first half of the year illustrated this, with the second quarter seeing a 4.7 percent GDP growth year-on-year, down from 5.3 percent in the first quarter. Extreme weather and floods contributed to the decline, reflecting the increasing difficulties in current economic operations, such as insufficient domestic effective demand.

Looking ahead, the trends of China’s stable economic operation and sustainable improvement remain unchanged. The transformation towards high-end, intelligent, and green manufacturing is progressing solidly, fostering new industries and growth drivers. Improvements in energy security and industrial supply chain resilience, along with the rise of new technologies like big data and artificial intelligence, are creating new consumption scenarios. Self-reliance in science and technology continues to improve, injecting new momentum into the development of high-quality productive forces.

Reforms remain essential for high-quality economic growth. The third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which began on Monday, will focus on comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization. Innovative and pace-setting reforms are expected to consolidate consensus, emancipate and develop productive forces, and enhance social dynamics. Efforts to deepen reform across the board will continuously provide strong impetus and institutional guarantees for Chinese modernization.