China revises down 2019 GDP growth to 6% on lower manufacturing

BEIJING • China has revised down its official gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate for last year to 6 per cent from 6.1 per cent, mainly due to a lower estimate for manufacturing output, a change that will make it slightly easier for officials to report economic expansion this year.

China's GDP last year was 435 billion yuan (S$88.3 billion) smaller than the initial estimate released in January this year, the country's statistics bureau said yesterday.

According to the latest estimate, China's nominal GDP last year was 98.7 trillion yuan.

The manufacturing sector saw the largest change - with value-added output reduced by 503.8 billion yuan from an earlier estimate - followed by the finance, transport and construction sectors.

China often makes small revisions to GDP data, based on factors such as the collection of more comprehensive data from businesses.

Beijing in January revised up the annual growth rates between 2014 and 2018. Last year, it revised the estimated growth of 2017 GDP downwards by 0.1 percentage point to 6.8 per cent.

Beijing did not publish a GDP growth target this year for the first time in decades, as it struggled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, it has largely controlled the spread of the virus, with business activity mostly returning to normal.

As a result, China is the only major economy that is expected to grow this year, though at a slower rate of around 2 per cent, according to economists' forecasts.

BLOOMBERG