As the government prepared to help the COVID-affected sector, China's state planner approved fixed asset investment projects totaling 1.48 trillion yuan ($218.35 billion) in 2022, almost doubling the amount from the previous year.
According to a National Development and Reform Commission spokeswoman, 109 projects in all were approved last year, with the majority being in the transportation, energy, water conservation, and information technology sectors (NDRC)
With its gross domestic product (GDP) growing by just 3.0% from a year earlier, far short of the official target of "around 5.5%" set at the beginning of last year, China has been increasing spending on infrastructure projects to support economic growth, which has slumped to one of its worst levels in almost a century over 2022.
Looking ahead to 2023, the NDRC spokesman noted that China's economic recovery will likely be challenging because of the country's need to deal with supply chain disruptions, declining demand, and general economic uncertainty.
As global demand decreased in December, China's exports fell by a startling 9.9% while imports fell by a more moderate 7.5%.
Economists anticipate that domestic demand will slowly recover in the coming months, "but for the first quarter, we will still see a bumpy transitional period where we actually might see contraction instead of growth," Jing Liu, chief economist for Greater China at HSBC, in a call following the release of the 2022 data.
This year, the GDP is expected to expand by 5.8%, according to HSBC, she continued.