China's Q1 growth jumps 4.5% after zero-Covid scrapped

China's economy grew 4.5 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, official data showed Tuesday, after Beijing scrapped its zero-Covid measures late last year.

The country's March retail figures, the main indicator of household consumption, were up 10.6 per cent on-year, the biggest bounce since June 2021.

According to figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), industrial production in March climbed 3.9 per cent year-on-year.

Tuesday's figures are the first snapshot since 2019 of a Chinese economy unencumbered by public health restrictions.

The Asian giant's virus containment policy -- an unstinting regime of strict quarantines, mass testing and travel curbs -- strongly constrained normal economic activity before it was abruptly ditched in December.

The world's number two economy is also beset by a series of other crises, from a debt-laden property sector to flagging consumer confidence, global inflation and the threat of recession elsewhere.

China's economy grew by just three per cent in the whole of last year, one of its weakest performances in decades.

It posted a 4.8 per cent expansion in the first quarter of 2022, though growth pulled back to just 2.9 per cent in the final three months of the year.