China's economy continued its robust recovery in October, the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. Effective COVID-19 control and government policies to boost demand and consumption led to broad-based improvements in major economic indicators. Retail sales of consumer goods, the main gauge of China's consumption, climbed 4.3 percent year on year to 3.86 trillion yuan (about US$584.5 billion) last month. The catering industry reported a 0.8-percent increase in revenue, the first expansion this year. The new energy vehicles (NEV) sector was a bright spot in equipment manufacturing. NEV output surged 94.1 percent year on year in October as unleashed pent-up demand and supportive policies boosted the auto market. To cushion the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, China has rolled out a raft of measures, including more fiscal spending, tax relief, and cuts in lending rates and banks' reserve requirements to stabilize growth and employment. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) currently projects that China's economy will grow by 1.9 percent in 2020 and expand at 8.2 percent in 2021.
