- No explanation for postponement of data due Tuesday morning
According to Nikkei Asia’s article published on October 17, 2022, China is delaying publication of third-quarter GDP figures and a batch of other economic data in the midst of the country's most important political leadership meeting in years.
Figures for July-September growth were due Tuesday morning with the data closely watched after the world's No. 2 economy narrowly avoided a contraction in the previous quarter and with full-year growth widely expected to be among the weakest in decades.
But on Monday, the National Statistics Bureau's updated website said the data were delayed along with other figures set for release, including September industrial production, retail sales and the unemployment rate.
The agency gave no new release date or an explanation for the delay, which came hours after Zhao Chenxin, deputy head of state planner the National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters that the economy was set for a recovery in the third quarter as support measures took effect.
Zhao did, however, acknowledge challenges to the economy, which has been hammered by Beijing's strict zero-COVID policy, a mounting property market crisis and the global slowdown.
The rare delay also comes after the General Administration of Customs on Friday skipped the release of September trade figures, which were tipped to weaken as China grapples with slowing exports. That also went unexplained.
China's Communist Party kicked off its twice-a-decade National Congress on Sunday in Beijing where President Xi Jinping delivered a sweeping speech that referenced geopolitical tensions and economic struggles.
The GDP data scheduled for Friday was expected to mark an improvement after China eked out a 0.4% on-year expansion in the second quarter. That was its worst quarterly performance since a 6.9% contraction in the first three months of 2020 as the country locked down the city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 was first detected.
Analysts and financial institutions have been slashing their growth targets for this year and few expect it to come in near an earlier government target of around 5.5%.
A recent Nikkei poll of analysts and economists found that they expect China's economy to expand between 2.2% and 4.1% in 2022, with the average forecast at 3.2% among 31 respondents.
Apart from a 2.2% expansion in 2020 after an initial battering from COVID, this 2022 growth rate could mark China's weakest in years.
Xi -- who is expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term at the weeklong congress -- threw cold water on hopes that China will soon ditch some of the world's strictest virus curbs, including widespread lockdowns blamed for hammering growth.
"We have adhered to the principle of 'people first, life first,'" Xi told nearly 2,300 party members at the meeting Sunday. "protected people's lives and health to the greatest extent, and achieved great results in coordinating the prevention and control of the epidemic and economic and social development."
China has recorded a low death rate from the illness compared with many countries.
In recent months, the government has rolled out dozens of measures to prop up growth, which has also been hit by a downturn in the key real-estate sector.
The property market was hammered by a wave of bond defaults by debt-swamped developers, which left scores of residential properties unfinished. That sparked a nationwide mortgage strike among angry homebuyers and triggered a collapse of confidence in the sector, which accounts for about a quarter of China's gross domestic product.
