China’s economy has beaten expectations even as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a prolonged crisis in the property market weigh on growth.<\/p>\n
Official figures show the world’s second largest economy grew by 5.2% in the three months to the end of June, compared to the same time last year. That’s better than the 5.1% forecast by many economists but lower than the previous quarter.<\/p>\n
The country has so far avoided a sharp downturn, partly due to measures announced by Beijing to help support the economy and a fragile trade truce with Washington.<\/p>\n
The economy “withstood pressure and made steady improvement despite challenges”, said China’s National Bureau of Statistics in a statement.<\/p>\n
Officials said economic growth was helped by a 6.4% expansion in manufacturing, with higher demand for 3D printing devices, electric vehicles and industrial robots.<\/p>\n
The country’s services sector – which includes areas like transport, finance, and technology – also made gains.<\/p>\n
But in June, retail sales growth slowed to 4.8% from a year earlier, compared with a 6.4% increase in May.<\/p>\n
Also on Tuesday, official figures showed a drop in China’s new home prices in June, falling at the fastest monthly pace in eight months. <\/p>\n
The data suggests the country’s real estate industry is continuing to struggle despite several rounds of measures to support property prices.<\/p>\n
Analysts had expected a bigger impact from tariffs on China’s economy but the country remains “highly resilient”, said economist Gu Qingyang from the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n
Growth was boosted by exports, mainly due to firms rushing to ship goods before potential new tariffs or changes to China’s export strategy take effect, he added.<\/p>\n
The second half of the year is likely be more uncertain though, Prof Gu said. <\/p>\n
“As a result, stronger government stimulus might be needed. That said, achieving the 5% annual growth target still seems well within reach.”<\/p>\n
But some economists expect China to miss its “around 5%” annual growth target this year.<\/p>\n
“The real question is by how much. We believe it will defend a floor of 4%, which remains the minimum politically acceptable level,” Dan Wang, director for China at consultancy Eurasia Group told the BBC.<\/p>\n
A tariffs war between China’s President Xi Jinping and Trump led to the US imposing a 145% levy on Chinese imports. In return, Beijing introduced a 125% duty on some US goods.<\/p>\n
Those tariffs were paused after negotiations in Geneva and London. The two sides now have until 12 August to reach a long-term trade deal.<\/p>\n
Washington has also hit countries with close economic ties to China with heavy levies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s economy has beaten expectations even as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a prolonged crisis in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-66843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114855845723264270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}