[Economics]The “tremendous damage” that the zero covid policy is causing to the Chinese economy

[Kyro]

 

The strict lockdowns due to the zero covid policy have dealt a severe blow to the Chinese economy and the effects have become increasingly evident.

Youth unemployment hit a record 20%, corporate profits have dipped and the manufacturing sector contracted again in November.

For a country used to having annual growth rates close to 9% in recent decades, things are getting complicated.

International forecasts estimate that economic growth for this year will not exceed 3%, well below government expectations.

If things continue like this, the Chinese economy would experience its slowest expansion in more than four decades, discounting the 2020 crisis amid the pandemic.
 

Although this Thursday the Chinese government announced that it will reduce some of the restrictions imposed on the mobility of people to contain the covid-19 pandemic, it is still not clear what the new measures will be, at a time when the infections caused by the omicron variant in a population that has not been massively vaccinated.

Fed up with confinement, in recent days hundreds of people staged unprecedented protests triggered by a fire that killed 10 people locked in a high-rise residential building.

The protesters attributed the deaths to the fact that the doors of the building were blocked to avoid contagion, something that the authorities deny.

 

We don't want covid tests, we want freedom," a group of young people shouted in the streets of Shanghai during demonstrations that also included shouts against the Xi Jinping government, something unprecedented in the Asian giant.

While the restrictions on free movement have dampened consumer confidence -even unleashing the ire of those who are subjected to long confinements-, the government faces the dilemma of changing the health approach to stimulate the economy, risking infections spreading of control.

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-63828454