Economic data on the Chinese economy’s performance in April, released by the government today, showed that the lockdowns in Shanghai and other major cities and ports seriously impacted economic activity in that month, while total COVID domestic infections in the nation were brought down from a peak near 27,000 to just a few hundred a day, and hospitalizations and deaths from COVID were largely avoided.
Industrial production was 2.9% below the same month of 2021—only the second time in the past 32 years, after the pandemic month of February 2020, in which year-to-year industrial production fell. Retail sales fell by 11%, home sales by more than 25% (again, compared to April 2021), and unemployment rose to 6.1%. This all followed and interrupted reported growth of 4.8% in GDP in the first quarter of the year.
However, because of the government’s very conscious policy of using investment in new infrastructure to maintain productivity and economic security in what is becoming a global collapse, fixed investment kept rising, by 6.8% in April from a year earlier. And with the Omicron surge having been stopped and lockdowns progressively ending in May, growth will be restarted. The National Bureau of Statistics, which released the data, said: “COVID outbreaks in April had a big impact on the economy, but the impact is short-term. With progress in COVID controls and policies to stabilize the economy taking effect, the economy is likely to recover gradually.”
