China's economy sustains recovery in Jan-Feb

China's economy sustained its recovery in the first two months of 2021, with major indicators surging from the same period last year, said Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on Monday.

Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, introduces China's economic development in January and February at a press conference of the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on March 15, 2021. [Photo by Xu Xiang/China SCIO]

Liu said the indicators show a significant growth from the same period last year partly due to the low base numbers in 2020. Apart from that, the factors underpinning the surges also included effective pandemic prevention and control, recovering global demand, and the stay-put policy during the Chinese New Year holiday in February.

Specifically, China's value-added industrial output increased by 35.1% year on year in the first two months of this year. It represents a 16.9% growth compared with the level in the same period of 2019, as well as an annual growth of 8.1% over the past two years.

The country's retail sales of consumer goods went up 33.8% in January and February, totaling more than 6.97 trillion yuan (US$1.07 trillion). This represents a 6.4% growth compared with the level in the same period of 2019, as well as an annual growth of 3.2% over the past two years. 

The fixed-asset investment (rural households excluded) surged 35% year on year to 4.52 trillion yuan in the January-February period. 

The total imports and exports of goods came in at 5.44 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.2%. Among them, exports registered 3.06 trillion yuan, an increase of 50.1% year on year; imports totaled 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.5%.

In addition, the surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.4% in January and 5.5% in February. A total of 1.48 million new urban jobs were created in the first two months.