With Covid-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and other major Chinese cities adversely affecting factory output and consumer activity, China's economic growth in the second quarter of 2022 slowed sharply to 0.4 per cent, compared with the same period a year earlier.

The Chinese economic growth in Q2 2022 represents the lowest growth rate since China's economy shrank by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 after the country was hit by the early outbreak of Coronavirus.

The latest result was below the median estimate of 1.1 per cent growth projected by experts and weaker than the 4.8 per cent year-on-year expansion in the first quarter, reported Nikkei Asia.

The sharp fall in the growth is significant as China has set its gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for 2022 at around 5.5 per cent.

In figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday (15 July), it was revealed that the Chinese economy grew by 2.5 per cent in the first half of the year.

China was already struggling against a rocky global market when it was hit by its worst virus outbreak since early in the pandemic.

The Covid outbreak set off a series of lockdowns in major Chinese cities, including in the financial capital Shanghai, where most of its 25 million people were confined to their homes for two months.