Stable growth of China's economy adds certainty to global economic landscape: senior statistics official

BEIJING -- China's economic performance achieved a "good start" in the first quarter of 2024, bringing certainty to the volatile global economic landscape, according to a guest speaker at the fourth episode of the China Economic Roundtable, an all-media talk platform hosted by Xinhua News Agency.

The global economic landscape will still see a year full of uncertainty, with complicated international environment, frequent geopolitical conflicts, and the trend of high inflation, high debt pressure, high interest rates and low economic growth remaining unchanged, said Wang Guanhua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics.

Against this backdrop, China's GDP expanded 5.3 percent in the first quarter from the same period of 2023, compared with a 5.2-percent overall growth registered last year and above the annual growth target of around 5 percent set for this year, NBS data showed.

The country's first-quarter foreign trade scale exceeded 10 trillion yuan ($1.41 trillion) during the same period for the first time, expanding five percent from a year ago, with the growth being a six-quarter high.

Commenting on the data, Wang said that the robust performance reflected the fact that the fundamentals of China's macroeconomy remained solid, and the economy had grown strong with sturdier "muscles and bones" through transformation and upgrades.

"On a global scale, the country has retained a leading position among the world's major economies, and continued to serve as an important engine and stabilizer for the global economy," Wang added.