Real Estate Crisis And Crippling Energy Shortage Drags Down China's Q3 GDP Growth To A Tepid 4.9%, Q4 Growth Seen At 3.2%

Hit by real estate crisis and crippling energy shortage, China’s economy grew by a tepid 4.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the same period a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced today (Oct 18).

In the first three quarters, China's GDP grew by 9.8 percent . The country's economy grew by 18.3 percent growth in the first quarter and 7.9 percent growth in the second quarter.

China's GDP growth prospects in the fourth quarter also faces severe supply side challenges, which may further drag down China's GDP growth for the whole of 2021. Goldman Sachs has lowered its projection of China's fourth-quarter GDP to 3.2 percent from a year earlier, compared with previous forecast of 4.1 percent.

China was the only major economy that was seen as having weathered the Covid -19 induced economic slowdown by a clocking an annual growth of 2.3% in 2020. Despite a 6.8% contraction in the quarter ending March 2020 (when China was dealing with a spike in Covid-19 cases), the caseload had eased considerably by middle of 2020 and economic recovery was driven by booming exports and robust activity in Industrial sector.

China has set an economic growth target of “above 6 per cent” for 2021