China’s economic growth has slowed since 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic and government crackdowns on the private sector and corporate debt levels pushed full-year growth to 2.2 percent, the weakest since 1976.
There was a delay in 2021 with a growth rate of 8.4 percent. Part of this was due to a low base in 2021, but exports also rose as the country largely recovered from the initial wave of the Covid-19 outbreak while the rest of the world remained in quarantine.
In 2022 China’s economy grew by only 3 percent as Covid outbreaks returned to the country, highlighting the heavy costs of the government’s zero-covid policy.
The the economy grew by 5.2 percent 2023. Although it exceeded Beijing’s target of 5 percent, the target was the lowest in decades and confirmed that China’s period of rapid growth has stalled.
