China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) says it is confident that the Chinese economy will satisfy the full-year targets set by the government for 2020 despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At a press conference held on 20 October NDRC spokesperson Meng Wei (孟玮) said that China’s economy had continued to steadily recover in the third quarter, and possessed “strong resilience and huge potential.”
“We have the foundations, conditions and confidence to complete full-year economic and social development targets for the current year,” said Meng.
Meng pointed out that in the third quarter the Chinese economy managed to shift 2020 economic growth from negative to positive territory, with the first three quarters of 2020 seeing YoY growth of 2020 as compared to a YoY decline of 1.6% for the first half of the year.
Endogenous growth drivers are continuing to strengthen, with hi-tech industry investment rising 9.1% YoY for the first three quarters of 2020, for an acceleration of 2.8 percentage points compared to the first half.
Hi-tech manufacturing sector investment saw an increase of 9.3%, while the figure for the hi-tech services sector was 8.7%.
Meng further points out that in the first three quarters of 2020 new urban employment totalled 8.98 million, approaching the full year target. As of September China’s nationwide urban unemployment rate was 5.4%.
