While this year’s 1.2 percent is significantly lower than the approximately six percent growth most economists expected for China before the coronavirus outbreak hit, that China will manage positive growth at all is a testament to its strength. And if the IMF’s projections are correct, China will be rapidly making up for lost time in 2021.

In contrast to China, economists predict most major economies to contract in 2020. Although the US has already pumped massive amounts of money into stabilizing the economy, such as through a US$2.3 trillion financing package, the IMF projects the US to contract by 5.9 percent in 2020 and grow by 4.7 percent in 2021. Similarly, the IMF expects the Euro Area to decrease by 7.5 percent in 2020 before bouncing back to 4.7 percent the next year.

In fact, India is the only other major economy the IMF expects to end the year with positive growth, with a projected 1.9 percent increase. The IMF even predicts that the ASEAN-5 – a group of Southeast Asia’s five largest economies – will contract by 0.6 percent in 2020.

China and India, then, stand alone as the only major economies expected to finish 2020 with positive growth. And as the world’s second largest economy – several times bigger than India’s – China’s contributions to global growth will be enormous.

Source: China Briefing, May 1, 2020, updated by China Invest Abroad June 17, 2020.