A group of people exit an underpass in Beijing.WANG ZHAO / AFP
The economic recovery after the pandemic seems like a distant horizon for most of the world's countries, many of which still face contagion figures at maximum levels.
Not so in China, whose GDP draws the long-awaited V driven by the dynamism of its market and the ability of its authorities to put the virus under control.
In the third quarter, the Asian giant's economy advanced 4.9%, according to official data published early this Monday by the National Statistics Office.
The coronavirus hit China hard in the first quarter, causing a 6.8% drop, its first contraction in nearly half a century.
The previous one dated back to 1976, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution and after the death of Mao Zedong.
Already between April and June it left the red numbers with a rebound of 3.2%, a figure that suggested that the worst had been left behind while the rest of the world plunged into a deep recession.
But the figure revealed this Monday goes a step further, clearly confirming the previous trend and placing the Asian country very close to the pace before the pandemic.
And yet some analysts expected an even faster recovery: the Bloomberg survey of experts predicted a 5.5% jump.
In this way, and except for surprise, the country will close the year in positive territory despite the global debacle.
The Communist Party, however, refused to set an annual growth target as usual during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress in May.
Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised up its annual forecast to 1.9%.
This will turn China, the first country in which COVID-19 manifested itself, into one of the few large world economies - if not the only one - that will grow in 2020. The agency, on the other hand, gave -4.3% for the United States and -10.3% for India.
Solid uptick in consumption
Other data that have seen the light this Monday confirm this optimistic reading: all, without exception, confirm the upward trend.
Industrial production, a key indicator of the health of the productive fabric, grew 6.9% in September after 5.6% in August.
Investment in fixed assets also increased by 0.8%.
The unemployment rate - despite being a figure that is not very representative of the reality of work: it does not include a large number of migrant workers - continued to fall to 5.4% after reaching its ceiling in February with 6.2%.
One of the most positive results has been that of retail sales, which rose 3.3% in September.
Consumption thus strengthens its evolution after growing for the first time so far this year last August, with 0.5%.
This indicator is key for the economic reactivation after the stoppage at the beginning of the year.
Since then, the control of the virus has allowed to resume the activity with slight restrictions.
The schools have started the school year normally, the factories are operating at full capacity and the shopping centers are crowded with customers: a reality confirmed by the figures published this Monday.
"China's recovery has been supported by an accommodative monetary and fiscal policy, as well as a successful virus containment strategy that has facilitated a solid rebound in both domestic demand and exports," the consulting firm Eurasia detailed in a note. .
Customs data published last week reflected how sales abroad have maintained their advance, growing by 13.2% in September to reach a historic amount of 203,000 million dollars (173,000 million euros).
In April, the Asian giant added almost a fifth of global exports.
This trend, however, could be mitigated by the appreciation of the national currency, the yuan, which has recently experienced its largest revaluation in 15 years: today it takes 6.70 units of the Chinese currency to get a dollar, when last May they were 7.20.
Aware of this, the central bank acted last week to stop its escalation.
If consumption reacts in the same way as exports, the Chinese economy could maintain the good progress to the point of regaining some of the lost ground.
The IMF already believes that the Asian giant will grow above 8% in 2021.