China's economy continues to bounce back in 2021: UK media

LONDON -- China's economy has made a rapid bounce back from the pandemic slump, with key data surging dramatically at the start of this year, the BBC said on Monday.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, in the first two months of 2021, China's total value added of the industrial enterprises above the designated size grew by 35.1 percent year-on-year and by 16.9 percent compared with the first two months of 2019.

Meanwhile, China's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 6,973.7 billion yuan (about $1071.5 billion), up by 33.8 percent year-on-year and by 6.4 percent compared with the first two months of 2019.

The BBC said China's economic data beat analysts' expectations, pointing to a continued recovery for the world's second-largest economy.

"These items tell us that Chinese consumers spent lavishly during the Chinese New Year holiday," the BBC quoted Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING bank, as saying.

Other analysts also paid attention to China's economic recovery. Michael Hewson of CMC Markets, a UK-based financial services company, said China's consumers appear to be more confident, with retail sales for the first two months of this year rising 33.8 percent.

Expecting robust growth to resume in China, Tommy Wu at Oxford Economics said: "We are optimistic on China's exports and manufacturing investment this year."

"And we expect household consumption to become a key driver of growth Q2 onwards as confidence improves," Wu added.

In 2020, China emerged from the epidemic-induced slump with a 2.3-percent GDP growth, making it the world's only major economy to attain positive growth.