People visit the Old North Market during the Lunar New Year holiday in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, Feb. 14, 2021. (Xinhua/Yang Qing)
It was the effective anti-pandemic measures and emergency relief for businesses that helped the Chinese economy to recover at a fast pace, said a professor of public policy at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic offers inspiration and experience worth learning to other countries striving to revive their pandemic-hit economies, an expert said on Friday.
"Africa and the rest of the world can learn from China's recent experience in economic revitalization in many ways," Costantinos Bt. Costantinos, professor of public policy at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, said in an interview with Xinhua.
Despite suffering a severe blow to its economy, China still achieved a 2.3-percent increase year on year in its gross domestic product (GDP), becoming the only major economy to grow in 2020. On Thursday, China officially declared the success of its poverty alleviation campaign.
Inspired by China's achievement in eliminating absolute poverty, Costantinos said that "nations need to bolster income and promote employment opportunities."
A staff member checks the temperature of a customer at a cinema in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Feb. 23, 2021. (Photo by Zhang Tao/Xinhua)
Costantinos, also former economic advisor to the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, noted that it was the effective anti-pandemic measures and emergency relief for businesses that helped the Chinese economy to recover at a fast pace.
"China's recent GDP records show the economy has almost stabilized, even if this is the bottommost rate of annual growth in more than four decades for the miraculous economic titan," he said.
Even though the stringent lockdown of people and businesses led to contraction of the Chinese economy in the first quarter of 2020, China soon reinvigorated its economy by boosting investment and global trade after largely containing the pandemic, the scholar explained.
China's success indicated that to revive the economy, countries need to develop more value-added industries and focus on the more competitive and efficient service sectors, said Costantinos. ■
