China’s economy beats forecasts

AFP | Beijing

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China said yesterday its economy topped forecasts in the first quarter, as exporters rushed to shift goods ahead of swingeing US tariffs, but warned it faced “certain pressures” from Donald Trump’s trade blitz.

Beijing and Washington are locked in a fast-moving, highstakes game of brinkmanship since the US president launched a global tariff assault that has particularly targeted Chinese imports.

Official data Wednesday offered a first glimpse into how those trade war fears are affecting the Asian giant’s fragile recovery, already feeling the pressure of persistently low consumption and a property market debt crisis.

“At the moment, the imposition of high tariffs by the US will put certain pressures on our country’s foreign trade and economy,” Sheng Laiyun, Deputy Commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), told a news conference.

But, he said, “it will not change the general trend of China’s economy continuing to improve in the long run”.

The NBS said that “according to preliminary estimates, the gross domestic product in the first quarter... (was) up by 5.4 percent year on year at constant prices”.

That was above the 5.1 percent predicted by analysts polled by AFP.

Retail sales, a key gauge of consumer demand, climbed 4.6 percent year-on-year, the NBS said -- exceeding expectations following greater efforts by Beijing to boost consumer demand after years of weak spending. And industrial output soared 6.5 percent in the first quarter of the year, up from 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2024.

But Beijing warned the global economic environment was becoming more “complex and severe” and that “proactive and effective macro policies” were needed to boost growth and consumption.

“The foundation for sustained economic recovery and growth is yet to be consolidated,” the NBS said.

Figures released Monday showed Beijing’s exports soared more than 12 percent on-year in March, smashing expectations, with analysts attributing it to a “front-loading” of orders ahead of Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2.