At first glance, the number does not sound so bad, but for Chinese standards, the economy cooled significantly. It is the lowest Plus three decades.
Container port in the Chinese port of Qingdao in the Eastern Shandong province
Because of the trade dispute with the United States and weak domestic demand, China’s economic growth weakened to its lowest value for nearly 30 years. Gross domestic product grew in the third quarter by 6.0 percent compared to the same period last year, as the statistics office announced.
The growth for the three previous quarters of this year, with 6.2 per cent in the lower range of the government’s output target corridor for the full year of 6.0 to 6.5 percent. In the first quarter of 6.4 and in the second, 6.2 per cent had been achieved. In the entire year of 2018, China’s economy had grown by 6.6 per cent.
Worker in a factory, the rubber making glove (archive image)
The slower growth of the two largest economies in the world – the USA and China’s economies and their trade dispute, with penalty duties also slow the global economy: The International monetary Fund (IMF) lowered this week its growth forecast for the current year to 3 percent. It is the fourth reduction in a row and was down from 3.2 percent in July.
Also Germany is affected
The Federal government maintains its forecast of 0.5 percent growth this year, lowered but on Thursday, the forecast for 2020, by 0.5 points to 1.0 percent. China is Germany’s largest trading partner. So German companies have to suffer from the weaker growth in the people’s Republic.
Pencil production in Sihong in the Eastern province of Jiangsu (archive image)
The United States and China want to bring up to a planned Meeting of their presidents, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific summit (APEC) in November in Santiago de Chile a first Agreement in the trade dispute to the paper. But there are still many uncertainties, such as regarding the amount of agricultural imports to China from the United States. The Beijing government requires not only that the previously announced special suspended duties, but also that the existing duties will be repealed.
jj/as (dpa, afp)