Analysts Cut Estimates for China’s GDP Growth Amid Covid Surge

What’s new: The impact of China’s ongoing wave of Covid-19 outbreaks could knock more than 1 percentage point from its first-quarter GDP growth, analysts said.

In line with the country’s “dynamic zero-Covid” strategy, local governments are imposing restrictions of different degrees to limit activity, affecting both economic demand and supply.

Businesses involving close contact such as real estate sales and labor-intensive industries including construction and services were hit first, researchers of Huatai Securities Co. Ltd. wrote in a Monday report. Supply chains, business expectations, household income and local government coffers will all be strained, they said.