Opinion: The Cost of China’s ‘Zero-Covid’ Strategy

China’s economy performed better than expected in the first two months of 2022, but that was followed by a sudden resurgence of Covid-19 infections. Going forward, how will the pandemic impact economic growth for the rest of the year?

China’s economic data for the January-to-February period unexpectedly beat estimates in areas including exports, consumption and investment, which rose year-on-year by 13.6%, 6.7% and 12.2% respectively. This led some analysts to believe that China’s economy is out of the woods, while others had reservations about the data.