Following China’s recovery from the corona crisis, strong economic data suggests faster growth in the final quarter of the year. In October, retail spending on consumer goods rose again by 4.3 percent, significantly more than in the previous month (3.3 percent), according to the statistics office in Beijing. Industrial production climbed a little faster than expected by 6.9 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

Significant growth forecast According to the expectations of the statistical office, the economic data should lead to the second largest economy in the world growing faster in the last three months of the year than in the third quarter with 4.9 percent . Experts expect five to six percent growth. Despite the strong Corona slump at the beginning of the year, China is likely to be the only major economy to record growth this year. An increase of around 2 percent is expected.

In the first ten months of the year, industrial production increased by 1.8 percent. Investments in real estate are growing faster again and have increased by 6.3 percent since the beginning of the year. Fixed investments have climbed by a total of 1.8 percent since the beginning of the year compared to the same period in the previous year, as the statistics office also announced. Foreign direct investment rose in the period by 6.4 percent – most recently in October by 18, 3 percent, like The Ministry of Commerce added.

The global measures against the coronavirus pandemic have led the global economy into a recession from which it is only slowly beginning to recover. The consequences can be felt in numerous countries and industries, including in the IT industry.

Largely normalized life In China, a year ago in December, infections with the corona virus were first discovered. The most populous country on earth has brought the pandemic under control with strict quarantine measures, mass tests, contact tracing and entry restrictions, so that life has normalized.

Since the summer, only a few small local outbreaks have become known in the People’s Republic, which are usually immediately and vigorously tackled. Today there are otherwise only imported cases that are detected during the strict entry controls. Travelers must be in quarantine for two weeks.

Japan’s economy is also recovering Japan has also recovered from the record slump: the gross domestic product (GDP) of the world’s third largest economy, ahead of Germany, moved in the third quarter – extrapolated to the year 21, 4 percent, as the government in Tokyo announced on Monday on a preliminary basis. It is the first time in three quarters that the Japanese economy is growing again after the economic power had previously slipped into a severe recession expected. The rise in GDP – the strongest in four decades – was even more pronounced than many experts had thought. The leading Asian exchange in Tokyo increased significantly in response. The Nikkei index for 225 ended trading at its highest level in around 29 years.

Consequences of the trade dispute Japan was already severely weakened before the outbreak of the corona pandemic as a result of the trade conflict between the two largest economies in the world – the USA and China. Added to this were the consequences of an increase in VAT last year. Then came the corona crisis; the restrictions imposed between April and the end of May hit the weak economy hard. Since Japan, unlike other countries, did not impose a hard lockdown, the economic slump was still relatively mild.

Now the situation in East Asia looks better than in Europe or the USA. The “economic wise men” expect Germany’s GDP to decline by 5.1 percent this year. That would be roughly at the level of the slump in the global financial crisis 2009. In the coming year, the Council of Economic Experts is expecting growth of 3.7 percent – if there is no nationwide shutdown of economic life again. In Washington and London, the central banks recently warned of a further deterioration in the situation.

Normalization should take years But even in East Asia it is by no means guaranteed that the economy will now grow again permanently. China needs strong trading partners, lockdowns and poor economic figures in the EU and the USA would also affect the world’s second largest economy. In Japan, many economists are anticipating a further recovery in the economy in the final quarter – but much more slowly than in the third quarter. A renewed increase in corona infection cases both overseas and in their own country is clouding the business prospects. Experts in Tokyo expect that it will take years before Japan’s economy will fully recover from the effects of the global pandemic.

(tiw)