China: First dead due to COVID-19 in Shanghai since beginning of confinement

Beijing has announced a rebound in the country’s economic growth, but the challenges are numerous, while the Zero Covid strategy hampers production and trade.

Le Monde with AFP

China reported on Monday, April 18th of three people of COVID-19 in Shanghai, the first officially announced since the beginning of the end of March in the Chinese economic capital. The Asian giant, which follows a Zero Covid strategy, has only officially recorded 4,641 coronavirus deaths, initially discovered on its soil at the end of 2019.

In a statement broadcast on social networks, Shanghai City Hall stated that the three deaths were those of elderly suffering from underlying diseases. The two previous deaths announced in China had been mid-March in the province of Jilin (Northeast), border of North Korea.

Shanghai is the theater of the worst viral contagion in China since the beginning of the epidemic, with tens of thousands of new cases announced daily. Its 25 million people have been placed in strict confinement since the end of March, many of them complaining about supply problems.

Economic rebound

At the same time, Beijing announced Monday a rebound of its economic growth in the first quarter (+ 4.8% year-on-year), despite confinement in Shanghai and several regions that heavily penalize the activity. . The Chinese economy faces “important challenges”, however, recognized a high economic manager at a press conference.

Although subject to surety, the official figure of China’s GDP is always scrutinized in view of the country’s weight in the global economy. This increase was largely anticipated. In the fourth quarter 2021, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) had increased by 4% over one year.

China, which had for two years widely mastered on its soil the epidemic of COVID-19, has faced since last month at its worst outbreak of cases of the entire pandemic. Tens of millions of Chinese have been confined in March in Shenzhen Technological Metropolis (South), and are still in the northeastern country, cradle of the automotive industry, as well as in Shanghai, the economic capital.

Businesses at the stop

County of many countries that opt for cohabitation with the virus and raise restrictions, China continues to follow a zero covid policy. These measures seriously harm transport and supply chains and resulted in the stopping of many companies.

These difficulties have been added to those who already weighed in recent months on the Chinese economy: atone consumption, regulatory curing in several sectors such as real estate and technology, and uncertainties related to the war in Ukraine.

In March, retail sales, the main indicator of household spending, declined 3.5% over one year, after an unexpected acceleration in January-February accumulated (6.7%), only data published.

/Media reports.