A total of 23 domestic provinces in China saw above-average GDP growth in the first quarter, with Northwest China’s Xinjiang recording the fastest growth, while South China’s Guangdong Province reporting the largest economic output. 

Experts said the influence of the recent coronavirus outbreaks will manifest to a greater extent in the second quarter, but the concentrated rollout of government stimulus policies might also help China’s economy bottom out quickly and start to rebound in the third quarter. 

According to economic data released by China’s provinces and municipalities in recent days, Guangdong reported 2.85 trillion yuan in terms of GDP aggregate in the first quarter, the largest scale among all regions. It was followed by East China’s Jiangsu Province and Shandong Province. 

Hu Qimu, chief researcher at the Sinosteel Economic Research Institute, told the Global Times on Monday that the advantages of those provinces in population, manufacturing scale and innovative capabilities are strong even with certain external challenges, such as the coronavirus outbreaks in certain regions. 

However, some of those provinces have seen GDP growth slow down in the first quarter, indicating the influence of COVID is starting to show, though not to a great extent, Hu told the Global Times. 

Shandong’s GDP grew 5.2 percent in the first quarter, down from 18 percent of growth rate recorded in the first quarter of 2021. 

In terms of GDP growth, Xinjiang reported the fastest growth of 7.0 percent, while Northeast China’s Jilin Province had the slowest growth of -7.9 percent in the first three months. 

In total, 23 provinces and municipalities reported growth higher than the average first-quarter GDP growth of 4.8 percent, including East China’s Zhejiang, Fujian and Central China’s Hubei.  

According to Hu, with the outbreaks of COVID cases in multiple regions recently, economic activity will continue to worsen, and the negative impact of Omicron on domestic economy will manifest more evidently in the second quarter. 

“However, as China rolled out a cluster of policies to stabilize economic growth recently, and with the improvement of credit environment and logistics system, it’s possible that China’s economy might bottom out in the second quarter and start to rebound in the third one, given that China can explore a way to strike a balance between COVID management and economic growth,” he noted. 

In the first quarter, Shanghai recorded 3.1 percent GDP growth. The growth will mostly likely slide further in the second quarter, Hu said, though he did not give an accurate forecast. 

The city is still in the middle of a fierce battle against Omicron since March. South China’s Shenzhen also experienced a wave of severe coronavirus outbreaks earlier in February, but managed to put it under control with scientific and decisive measures by adhering to the country’s dynamic zero-COVID strategy.