China, EU Countries Register Industrial Production Growth

The industrial production growth is a good sign for the recovery of the global economy since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Worldwide, the regional economies started to show signs of strong growth.

China is the champion of August. Its industrial production had the fastest growth in the last 8 months, while the retail sales increased for the first time this year. It is quite normal for China to be the first country to recover, as it was the first country to be hit by the pandemic. It all starts in China, most likely in November, and it took 9 months for the country to start recovering economically.

Talking figures, China reported a 5.6% growth of the industrial production in August and a 0.5% increase of the retail sales.

On the opposite, U.S. industrial production slowed to a modest increase of 0.4% in August – a sign which shows that US is still far from an economic recovery. Also, the presidential elections and the economic war with China could slow the economy longer than expected.

Meanwhile, the European Union look stronger than it looked during the lockdown. In July, the industrial production grew with 4.1% as compared to June, but it’s still far from the last year’s performances. Germany, the EU economic engine, started to recover stronger than expected. A so called V-shaped recovery is the most expected scenario, according to the German minister of Economy, Peter Altmaier.

As for the less developed EU countries, such as Romania or Bulgaria, if we take just two examples from the Eastern Europe, this is also good news. Germany is the country of destination for 23% of the Romanian exports, and Bulgaria is also exporting to Germany, too. The V-shaped recovery of the regional economies could help the weaker countries enter into a V-shaped recovery scenario as well.