With no end in sight for China’s zero-COVID policy;

Arnab Nath, Economist at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“China’s reiteration of commitment towards the zero-tolerance of COVID-19 will continue to affect the supply chain and business activities. Against this backdrop, GlobalData forecasts the country’s economic growth to slow down from 8.1% in 2021 to 3.1% in 2022. The 2022 economic growth projection is a sharp downward revision from 5.1% estimated in February 2022.

“Politics and healthcare are the two core drivers of the zero-COVID strategy. Healthcare wise, China is expected to face a difficult winter with inadequate hospital supplies as old age population is still not fully vaccinated. China has been promoting the booster shots and vaccination rates for the elderly along with increasing the number of international flights and cutting down test requirements by the regional rail operators. The country has also approved BioNtech vaccine for foreigners.

“GlobalData expects that more lockdowns in winters to result in disappointing economic growth if the zero-COVID policy remains. This will in turn slow down the growth of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regional economy.”