BEIJING - China's economic growth for 2022 is expected to have been among its weakest in four decades after the twin crises of the pandemic and property woes, analysts said ahead of Tuesday's GDP announcement.
Ten experts interviewed by AFP forecast an average 2.7 percent year-on-year rise in gross domestic product (GDP) for the world's second-largest economy, a sharp plunge from China's 2021 growth of more than 8 percent.
It could also be China's slowest pace since a 1.6 contraction in 1976 -- the year Mao Zedong died -- and excluding 2020, after the Covid-19 virus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019.
Beijing had set itself a growth target of around 5.5 percent for 2022 but this was undermined by the government's "zero-Covid" policy, which put the brakes on manufacturing activity and consumption.
Strict lockdowns, quarantines and compulsory mass testing prompted abrupt closures of manufacturing facilities and businesses in major hubs -- like Zhengzhou, home of the world's biggest iPhone factory -- and sent reverberations across the global supply chain.
"The fourth quarter is relatively difficult," said economist Zhang Ming of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.
"No matter whether it's by the metrics of consumption or investment, the growth is slowing."
China's exports took their biggest plunge since the start of the pandemic in December, contracting 9.9 percent year-on-year, while consumption was in the red in November and investment has slowed.
"The three horse carriages of the Chinese economy are all facing a relatively evident downward pressure in the fourth quarter," Zhang said.
Rabobank analyst Teeuwe Mevissen echoed Zhang, saying the final quarter will "almost certainly show a decline because of the fast spread of Covid" after the loosening of health restrictions in December.
"This will affect both demand and supply conditions for the worse," he said.
Problems in the property sector are also still weighing on growth, Mevissen said.