China’s Covid Outbreaks Take Bite Out of Local Economic Growth

What’s new: The economies of several major Chinese provincial-level regions suffered in the first quarter, owing to the government’s stringent abidance of its “zero-Covid” strategy amid the country’s worst outbreak since early 2020.

Shanghai’s GDP grew 3.1% year-on-year in the first quarter, official data showed Saturday, a far cry from the national first-quarter GDP expansion of 4.8%. The financial hub accounted for 3.8% of the country’s GDP last year.