Pandemic effect: US economy set to outpace China first time since 1976
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China's growth has been hampered with the Xi regime sticking to the "Covid zero" policy with authorities locking down cities with only a few virus cases.
According to reports, the US economy is set to outpace China for the first time since 1976 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Bloomberg reported the US economy is set to grow at 2.8 per cent with China's gross domestic product(GDP) projected to increase by just 2 per cent this year.
China has been consistently beating the United States in GDP growth for decades even as President Xi warned officials that China's growth must be sustained to beat the United States.
The Bloomberg report said China's coronavirus lockdown means it will end up behind the United States. The International Monetary Fund(IMF) had earlier forecast China to overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by the 2030s.
However, amid the pandemic, China's growth has been hampered with the Xi regime sticking to the "Covid zero" policy with authorities locking down cities with only a few virus cases. The Chinese president has directed officials to pursue the "zero-Covid" policy "unswervingly".
Watch: US economy's strongest growth in 40 years
International agencies had earlier criticised China's lockdown approach as WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said China's "zero-Covid" policy was not sustainable.
China has been battling the virus surge since last September after the Delta variant began to infect a large number of people. Chinese authorities put millions of people on lockdown across cities at the time, in January after the Omicron variant began spreading Chinese officials once again put the "zero-Covid" policy in place.
Shanghai was put on lockdown for over a month with restrictions being eased even as authorities declared no new virus cases were reported.
Health officials undertook several rounds of mass testing in China's financial hub amid shortage of food as key factories remained closed leading to greater supply chain constraints.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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