• Notification Date: 18-01-2025
• Notification No: N/A

China's economy surprisingly proves resilient in 2024, despite fears of a trade war

Outside of a few projections, one would be hard pressed to argue that the economy of China is going into 2024 miraculously strong given serious threats of a trade war. It's exports have rebounded fearlessly in the fourth quarter, better than what people expect. The credit goes to good momentum generated by returning industrial production. Prospects of recovery, however, will dampen and fair chances on the negative side come with the help of the tension of the trade war against the US and unimaginative domestic demand.

The economy grew at a rate of 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024, after having originally estimated 5.0 percent growth, which was the strongest level of growth since mid-2023 when the economy was spurred by a wave of stimulus. Most analysts have said that the bulk of this was driven by one-off shipments to the U.S. that would quickly fall off once the new tariffs on U.S. imports were put into place.

Despite all this, one of the very few positives from China has been in the exports. Now, China needs to worry as the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump comes on board by threatening higher tariffs on Chinese goods, that may dampen its trade and thus have to increase more domestic stimulus in order to get the economy rolling.

Other economic indicators also continued to move in the right direction. Industrial production had increased 6.2% in December, while retail sales was on the rebound, increasing by 3.7%. Even property markets began to recover and were being battered from all sides.

While the unemployment rate in the country escalated to 5.1% in December. Low consumer demand and all this in the background of the rising trade tensions would mean that to further get ahead, China will have to persist with such strong policies. For all this said, the economic performance of China was quite strong in 2024, and the year coming ahead is covered with uncertainty.