China's economy on recovery track before rebounding: expert

SEOUL -- China's economy is on the track to recovery given the recently announced economic indicators, before rebounding in the second half of the year, a South Korean expert said Monday.

"China's economy is on a recovery track as before thanks to several stimulus packages from the Chinese government," Piao Renjin, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities in Seoul, told Xinhua.

China's GDP contracted 6.8 percent year on year in the first quarter owing to an economic fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak across the world.

The analyst predicted a zero-percent change in second-quarter GDP, before returning to a positive increase in the third and fourth quarters of 2020.

Piao ascribed her optimistic expectation to economic data in May. According to data released earlier Monday by China's National Bureau of Statistics, the value-added industrial output went up 4.4 percent year on year in May.

Yonhap news agency reported that China's industrial activity showed a V-shaped recovery given that the industrial production plunged 13.5 percent for the first two months of the year and 1.1 percent in March before growing 3.9 percent and 4.4 percent year on year in April and in May respectively.

Retail sales of consumer goods, a major indicator of consumption growth, declined 2.8 percent year on year in May, rebounding from a drop of 7.5 percent in April, NBS data showed.

"Consumption rapidly recovered on demand for consumer staples such as food and beverage and daily necessities. Among durable goods, car demand recovered remarkably," said Piao.

In the first five months of 2020, fixed-asset investment declined 6.3 percent year on year, narrowing by 4 percentage points from the decrease in the first four months, Monday's data showed.

Aju Business Daily, a major South Korean newspaper, reported that signs of China's economic recovery are crystal clear as major economic indicators relevant to production, consumption, investment and employment all recovered last month.

The surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas stood at 5.9 percent in May, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous month, according to the NBS.

"Despite a lingering worry about the second wave of (the) pandemic, situations got better (in China)compared to other countries," said Piao.

The analyst noted that China and South Korea, also one of the countries relatively breaking away from the COVID-19 pandemic, have higher possibilities to see their economies return to normal than other countries do.

She added that if the two countries deepen cooperation, it will create better economic effects.