Still on course despite buffeting storm: China Daily editorial

In the face of the negative influences of the resurgent novel coronavirus and the Ukraine crisis, the Chinese economy has again demonstrated its resilience.

China's gross domestic product grew to 27.02 trillion yuan ($4.24 trillion) in the first quarter, up 4.8 percent year-on-year and 1.3 percent compared with the fourth quarter of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on Monday.

Although the consumer price index rose 1.1 percent, the added value of agriculture surged 4.8 percent in the first quarter year-on-year, with the output of all staple produce, including grain, pork and soybean, increasing steadily, which has laid a solid foundation for the country to maintain its food security despite the Ukraine crisis impacting the global food supply chains.

Notably, the industrial added value increased 6.5 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period last year, with the high-end manufacturing and high-tech industries as the main drivers, increasing by 8.1 percent and 14.2 percent respectively.

With the output of new-energy vehicles up by 140.8 percent and solar cells by 24.3 percent, the country's emphasis on low-carbon development is clearly gaining momentum thanks to market demand and targeted policy assistance.

Yet it should be seen that the growth of the service sector, up 2.5 percent, and the recovery of consumption, up 3.3 percent, remain lackluster, even if some subdivisions, such as information, finance and e-commerce, which rose 10.8 percent, 5 percent and 8.8 percent respectively, have maintained robust growth.

The strong support of the central authorities in the form of 9.3 percent growth in fixed-asset investment and 10.7 percent growth in foreign trade over the first quarter have been key factors helping stabilize the growth of the economy.

March usually sees the lowest unemployment rate in the country, but the surveyed urban unemployment rate hit 5.8 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from February, and the manufacturing purchasing managers' index was 49.5 percent, below the 50 percent growth-contraction line.

As the Omicron variant is still raging in some parts of the country, including Shanghai and other economic and logistics hubs, and the uncertainties in the external development environment are building up, there is mounting downward pressure on the economy, and the future prognosis is less than rosy.

To maintain the stability of socioeconomic growth in the second quarter, all departments must earnestly carry out the central authorities' deployments to keep the economy running within a rational range by stabilizing the fundamentals, creating jobs, checking price hikes and guaranteeing people's livelihoods.

The central authorities continue to keep the bigger picture in mind and maintain a long-term perspective weighing short-term pains against the future gains of sustainable, green development.