China regional GDP data shows growing economic divide, exacerbated by coronavirus
- China’s economy on the surface has recovered from the impact of the coronavirus with a 4.9 per cent third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate
- But under the surface of the country’s overall strong rebound, regional economic divergences have widened in wake of the coronavirus pandemic
Holding cups of hot milk tea or carrying shopping bags filled with sports shoes or smartphones, tens of thousands of residents and tourists packed Shanghai’s Nanjing Road pedestrian shopping street last weekend, most not wearing masks as they swarmed onto the Bund promenade to enjoy the night view of the city.
But on the same Sunday evening in late October, the atmosphere in the western border city of Kashgar in Xinjiang province more than 4,100km (2,500 miles) away was entirely different, with most stores closed and streets eerily quiet as the city was under a de facto lockdown after more than 100 asymptomatic coronavirus cases were detected.
At the same time Beijing’s political elite announced that the size of the country’s economy is expected to surpass 100 trillion yuan (US$14.9 trillion) this year, the government also announced that bridging the regional and urban-rural development disparities would be a major item on its agenda in the next 15 years.
All of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions have released their local growth data for the first three quarters of 2020, with 25 posting positive growth compared to a year earlier. This figure is 10 higher than in the first six months of the year, helping push up national growth to 0.7 per cent in the first three quarters.