Slower growth in China won’t affect living standards

By Xie Jun

Source:Global Times

China's economy slowed but not so dramatically as to affect people's living standards, experts said, predicting that the domestic economy would further stabilize next year as the impact from the trade war is likely to dwindle.

China's GDP growth slowed to 6.0 percent in the third quarter, hitting a 27-year low, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday. In the first three quarters, China's GDP growth averaged at 6.2 percent.

Liu Xuezhi, a senior economist at the Bank of Communications, said that 6.2 percent growth means that China's economy is still expanding, and although a slowdown is taking place, it is not a "hard landing".

"People will hardly feel their ordinary lives being affected during such moderate slowdown," Liu told the Global Times on Sunday.

Statistics that are closely linked to people's living standards also showed no signs of strong fluctuations recently. Chinese residents' per-capita disposable income rose by 6.1 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters in 2019, compared with 6.6 percent one year earlier, NBS data showed.

Meanwhile, China's consumer price index (CPI) increased 3 percent year-on-year in September.

Several white-collar workers interviewed by the Global Times on Sunday also said that they hardly felt their living standards had been negatively influenced by the slowing GDP growth. One said that she felt commodity price has risen faster this year but still in a tolerable range.

"Mainly impacted is the manufacturing sector," Liu said.

The slowing domestic GDP growth is triggering pessimistic comments among overseas media. A Reuters report, for example, said that the downbeat data is fanning expectations that Beijing will need new measures to ward off a sharper slowdown that could drive job losses. A CNN report also stressed that the economic figures are "worse than expected."

Li Chunding, a professor at the College of Economics and Management under the China Agricultural University, told the Global Times that other countries should realize the double-digit growth era has already passed for China.

"It should be recognized that 6.2 percent is still high growth," he said.

Data released during the 40th International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) Meeting showed that global economic growth continued to slow down since April and the global economy is expected to grow only 3 percent this year, according to media reports.

Liu predicted that China's economy will stabilize next year with growth possibly slow down further, as the government's proactive policies become more effective.

He also noted that the negative impact of the trade war will also diminish next year. "The US has shown a clear attitude to end the trade war, and the room for further tariff punishment is also limited," he said.