Workers assemble cars at a workshop of an automobile manufacturer in Qingzhou City of Weifang, east China's Shandong Province, April 16, 2021. (Photo by Wang Jilin/Xinhua)
BEIJING, July 15 (Xinhua) -- China's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 12.7 percent year on year in the first half of 2021 as recovery continues to firm, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Thursday.
The figure puts average H1 growth for the past two years at 5.3 percent, 0.3 percentage points faster than the two-year average of Q1 growth from the 2019 level, according to the NBS.
In the second quarter, the country's GDP grew 7.9 percent year on year, the data showed. On a quarterly basis, the economy increased 1.3 percent in Q2.
Other major economic indicators showed continued improvements across the board, with industrial output rising 15.9 percent and retail sales up 23 percent year on year in the first half.
The country's surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5 percent in June, 0.7 percentage points lower than the same period last year.
In the first quarter of 2021, the Chinese economy grew 18.3 percent year on year as strong domestic and foreign demands powered recovery from a low base in early 2020 when COVID-19 stalled the world's second-largest economy.
"Generally, the national economy has sustained a steady recovery in the first half," said the NBS in a statement, but it cautioned over uncertainties stemming from the global spread of the pandemic and the unbalanced recovery domestically.
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