a. Find the most current published national economic statistics report of any country you want to do the research on.
The objective of this task is that you get the feel of a real-life example of a country’ economies and how does it work.
Socio-economic conditions of China
The report provides an overview on the present socio –economic conditions of China. Over the past few years, China has experienced huge social and economic development. Huge socio-economic change in this nation has been accompanied by certain restrictions on the basic rights. With improved socio- economic The national economic statistics of China such as GDP (Gross domestic product) and National Income are also discussed in this study. The study also highlights on the major contributing sectors in GDP of China such as education, agriculture. The variation of macroeconomic indicators of China including inflation, unemployment over the period of two years are assessed in this study. Furthermore, the recommendations for economic growth of China are elucidated in this report.
China has had rapid growth period shifting from centrally planned to the market- based economy. At present, this country has upper middle–income nation that has highly complex development needs. The socio-economic development of this country specifically, agricultural manufacturing base along with increasing industrial strength led to huge market- growth opportunities. Wu et al. (2013) found out that social and economic development of this country have also occurred owing to implementation of reforms and new polices. The comprehensive strength of this nation has become stronger over the past few years. In the past few years, this country has moved from agricultural to industrialized nation. Without even borrowing any kind of foreign loans, this nation has successfully undertook projects and developed several industries. This provided the basis for sustainable development of this economy. Over the past last few years, the per capital national income of China has attained rapid growth. According to the income statistics, per- capita income reached to about 4761 Yuan in rural areas while 15,781 Yuan in urban areas. As per the data released by World Bank, China has made huge leap from low- income nation to middle-p income nation. Moreover, the foreign exchange reserves of China also enhanced over the past ten years (Sy.chineseembassy.org. 2018).
Infrastructure development of the industries has been the main bottleneck in socio-economic development of China. In the last few years, this nation has enhanced investment in the construction of industries such as transport as well as telecommunication sector. This country has increased its transportation capacity with airports, railways over the past few years. The telecommunication as well as postal facilities also developed in China. This country has also built national information and the telecommunication network that covers different parts of the nation and connects other countries (Banister, Bloom and Rosenberg 2012).
Discussing GDP, national income of China
Huge progress has been done in the educational undertakings with increase in education level and education popularization rate that approaches average medium- income nations. The gross rate of attendance of high and middle schools also increased over the past few years. Several reforms have also occurred in the Medicare system and public health undertakings of China. Mortality rate of infants also decreased from 50% to 15.3% while life expectancy rate increased from 35 to 73 years over the last ten years. In addition to this, there has been remarkable changes in the standard of living of Chinese people in both urban and rural areas with respect to level of consumption patterns and environment (Meng 2012). This country has made huge progress in reducing poverty and pushing forward global endeavor of lifting poor people out of poverty. In the past few years, the total number of Chinese people living in poverty declined to below 250 million (Zhang 2013).
The pace of economic growth in this China economy has accelerated by about 6.9%in the year 2017 slightly up from 6.7% in the year 2016. The country’s strength in retail sales, exports and property market has led to spur economic growth of China, thereby putting this country in better position of tackling several problems of this country (Jarreau and Poncet 2012). According to the data released by ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics), the GDP of this country increased at high rate over the last ten years. The GDP value of this country represents 19.74% of the global economy. China’s GDP value averaged to near about 1970.49 USD billion from the year 1960 until the year 2017. The GDP value recorded highest in the year 2017 by about 12.238 trillion while it recorded to around 1.211 trillion in the year 2000. This reflects that the GDP of China increased at high rate over the last ten years (Zhang, Wang and Wang 2012). The GDP growth of China has averaged by near around 10% per year and thus fastened expansion in the history. However, this has lifted by more than 800 million Chinese people out of poverty. Although GDP growth of China had slowed during the period 2008, it is impressive by present global standards. Even, the national income of China also increased at high rate over the years. It has been estimated by few economists that if the average national income of China continues to increase by around 8%, the per capita income might reach to around $8500.
Main components contributing sectors in GDP
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Figure 1: GDP of China
Source: (Data.worldbank.org. 2018)
The GDP of China is highly contributed by three sectors that include- primary sector, secondary sector and tertiary sector. According to data released by ABS, the primary sector accounted for around 10%, secondary sector accounted for around 44% and tertiary sector accounted for around 46%. China’s being the globe biggest agricultural economy with forestry, fisheries and animal husbandry accounts for about 10% of its GDP. Over the last few years, the total share of China’s agriculture as part of GDP has remained stable at 10%. Industries involving electricity, mining, manufacturing accounted for about 44% of this nations GDP. The transport, retail trades, real estate, financial services accounts for around 46% of GDP. This country focus on the manufacturing sector with considerable barriers to trade circumvents them.
China’s core rate of inflation has been more or less stable over the last two years. The yearly inflation rate stood at around 1.8%in the year 2017 and 2.1% in the year 2016. Nevertheless, the food inflation hit at highest level for the past two years and cost of the non- food commodities enhanced at higher pace. The inflation rate of China remained below the target set by the Chinese government of about 3% over the last two years (Tradingeconomics.com. 2018). The data released by ABS also reveals that the rate of unemployment in China declined slightly over the last two years. The data reflects that China’s unemployment rate has been fairly constant owing to implementation of full employment policy by Chinese government (Tradingeconomics.com. 2018). Therefore, this reflects that inflation rate and unemployment rate of China had slight fluctuation during the year 2016-2017 and remained below the target level set by the Chinese government (Feng, Hu and Moffitt 2015).
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Figure 2: Inflation rate of China
Discussing macroeconomic indicators of China
Source: (Tradingeconomics.com. 2018)
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Figure 3: Unemployment rate of China
Source: (Tradingeconomics.com. 2018)
The recommendations are provided to the Chinese government in order to enhance economic growth of this country. These are given below-
- China should promote supply side structural reform and also open up new methods for boosting the economy.
- The Chinese government should eliminate remaining disablements to flexibility in this economy. The policymakers of China must adopt reforms including low trade barriers, exchange rate in order to increase economic growth.
- The policymakers of China must adopt expansionary fiscal and monetary policy for boosting economic growth.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be seen that adoption of policies and reforms by the China led to improvement of socio-economic conditions and increase in GDP and national income. Agricultural and education sector contributes to GDP of this country by large amount. Moreover, the macroeconomic indicators such as unemployment rate and inflation rate also reflects that the economic growth has remained stable over the last two years. Thus, this shows that the economic growth of China remains to be strong.
References
Banister, J., Bloom, D.E. and Rosenberg, L., 2012. Population aging and economic growth in China. In The Chinese Economy (pp. 114-149). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Data.worldbank.org. (2018). GDP (current US$) | Data. [online] Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=CN [Accessed 9 Sep. 2018].
Feng, S., Hu, Y. and Moffitt, R., 2015. Long run trends in unemployment and labor force participation in China (No. w21460). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Jarreau, J. and Poncet, S., 2012. Export sophistication and economic growth: Evidence from China. Journal of development Economics, 97(2), pp.281-292.
Meng, X., 2012. Labor market outcomes and reforms in China. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(4), pp.75-102.
Sy.chineseembassy.org. (2018). China's Socio-Economic Achievements during the past 60 years. [online] Available at: https://sy.chineseembassy.org/eng/xwfb/t622842.htm [Accessed 9 Sep. 2018].
Tradingeconomics.com. (2018). China Core Inflation Rate | 2008-2018 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast. [online] Available at: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/core-inflation-rate [Accessed 9 Sep. 2018].
Tradingeconomics.com. (2018). China Unemployment Rate | 2002-2018 | Data | Chart | Calendar | Forecast. [online] Available at: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/unemployment-rate [Accessed 9 Sep. 2018].
Wu, K.Y., Ye, X.Y., Qi, Z.F. and Zhang, H., 2013. Impacts of land use/land cover change and socioeconomic development on regional ecosystem services: The case of fast-growing Hangzhou metropolitan area, China. Cities, 31, pp.276-284.
Zhang, C., 2013. Money, housing, and inflation in China. Journal of Policy Modeling, 35(1), pp.75-87.
Zhang, J., Wang, L. and Wang, S., 2012. Financial development and economic growth: Recent evidence from China. Journal of Comparative Economics, 40(3), pp.393-412.
