Recently a global investigation conducted by CGTN and multiple think tanks has shown that over 78 percent of global interviewees are convinced that the Chinese economy is now an important economic engine for the world.
Indeed, after economic reforms that has been conducted for over four decades, the Chinese economy is now the world’s second largest in term of the real gross domestic product (GDP) and is playing a very important part in many aspects of the world economy.
China’s fast-growing economy
According to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China’s total GDP* was 368 billion yuan ($54.64 billion) in 1978, when economic reforms started. In the year of 2021, the total GDP reached 114.37 trillion yuan, or 311 times of the level in 1978.
According to World Bank data, in 2021 the total global GDP was $96.1 trillion. In the same year, China’s total GDP was $17.7 trillion, or 18.4 percent of that of the world.
A comparison between the GDP of China and the U.S. can show us how significant Chinese economic development has been in the past four decades. According to the World Bank, in 1978, China’s total GDP was $149.5 billion, while in the same year the GDP of the U.S. was $2.35 trillion, which means China’s total GDP was 6.4 percent of the U.S. In the year of 2021, after over four decades of economic reforms, China’s total GDP reached $17.7 trillion. Meanwhile, the total GDP of the United States reached $23 trillion. China’s total GDP is now 77 percent of that of the United States. Moreover, since this calculation conducted by the World Bank has used the gauge of the international currency, then the real GDP, as calculated by using local purchasing power, can mean that China’s economy weighs more in its share in the global economy.
Booming market in different sectors
The growing importance of China’s GDP can be felt in many industries. For example, the electric vehicle (EV) industry, of which the country is now leading globally.
CGTN