This Week as it Happened IV

CHINA'S ECONOMY HIT A HUNDRED TRILLION

Official data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that China’s economy grew by 2.3 percent in 2020 to cross the 100-trillion-yuan threshold. According to NBS, China is expected to be the only major economy to have recorded growth in the pandemic-ravaged year. China’s economy which has grown in ten folds within the space of the past 20 years now likely accounts for 17 percent of the global economy. Progress in the field of grain production, industrialization, high-speed railway and 5G technologies have played key roles in the growth, according to the head of the NBS. According to the 14th Five-Year Plan covering 2021 through 2025 released earlier this year, China’s leadership expects the gap between its GDP per capita and that of moderately developed nations to be eliminated by 2035. The World Bank expects the Chinese economy to expand by 7.9 percent this year.