The World Bank on Tuesday raised its forecast for China’s economy to grow this year to 8.5 percent from 8.1 percent and said a full recovery requires progress in vaccinating against the new coronavirus.
The report is another positive sign for the world’s second largest economy and the first major economy to recover from the covid-19 pandemic.
Activity at factories and domestic consumption have settled back above pre-covid-19 pandemic levels, although Chinese authorities have again restricted travel in some areas to contain small outbreaks of new variants of the virus.
Economic growth is expected to fall to 5.4 per cent next year as the recovery from last year’s historic global recession slows and economic activity returns to normal, the World Bank said.
In April, the World Bank said China and Vietnam were the only East Asian economies to achieve a “V-shaped” recovery by 2020, with results above pre-pandemic levels.
China is on track to vaccinate 40% of the population by early summer, but “a full recovery will also require continued progress to achieve widespread immunisation,” the World Bank said.
