- The 2.3 per cent expansion in 2020 was a marked slowdown from 2019’s revised growth of 6.0 per cent — itself already the lowest in decades — with the country hit by weak domestic demand and trade tensions.
- This brings it back to a pre-pandemic trajectory, although full-year 2020 growth is still its worst performance since a 1.6 contraction in 1976, the year Chairman Mao Zedong died.
- This marks the first contraction in retail sales since 1968, underscoring difficulties amid China’s push to rebalance its economy with domestic consumption as the main driver.
China GDP grows at slowest pace in more than four decades
