Photo shows Longtan Container Terminal of Nanjing Port in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province on January 17, 2025. On the day, data from te National Bureau of Statistics showed that China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5 percent year on year in 2024, meeting the government's full-year target. Photo: VCG

China's GDP growth rate in 2024 exceeded expectations, as effective policy supports underpinned economic resilience, a lead analyst at a global ratings agency told the Global Times on Saturday. 

"China's economy rebounded more than we had anticipated in the fourth quarter on the back of a step-up in fiscal stimulus and strong export performance. The acceleration in the final quarter of the year helped China achieve its 5 percent target for the full year 2024, coming in slightly ahead of our expectations of 4.8 percent," Jeremy Zook, lead analyst for China at US-based Fitch Ratings, said in a note sent to the Global Times. 

China's GDP grew 5 percent year-on-year to 134.9 trillion yuan ($18.41 trillion) in 2024, breaking the 130-trillion-yuan mark for the first time, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday. The growth rate was in line with the country's annual growth target of around 5 percent.

Zook noted that China's fiscal policy turned sharply expansionary in the second half of 2024, underpinning the economy's resilient performance and offsetting some of the domestic demand challenges. External demand has also been quite supportive of growth reflected by robust export growth, which created positive spillovers to industrial production activity, the analyst said.

Other analysts at international organizations also attributed China's better-than-expected GDP growth rate to effective policy supports, according to China Media Group (CMG).

Tamas Hajba, senior advisor for China and head of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Beijing Office, said that China made strides in transitioning to a sustainable growth model in 2024 and effectively utilized fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate economic activity, CMG reported on Saturday.  

"China has also introduced measures to support consumption, which certainly has potential and will become an important driver of China's economic growth," Hajba said, adding that despite some economic headwinds and uncertainties in external markets, China has both potential and room for structural reforms in 2025 and a solid foundation for sustained growth.

Regarding China's economic outlook in 2025, Xu Xiangrong, chief China economist at Citigroup, said that China's GDP growth target for 2025 is expected to remain "around 5 percent," according to a statement sent the US bank sent to the Global Times.

With the support of policies, infrastructure investment and manufacturing investment are expected to continue to maintain high single-digit growth, offsetting the downward pressure on real estate investment, Xu said. 

Global Times