China's economy shrugs off global slump as shoppers join the recovery

The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the world's economies into historic slumps. But China is bucking the trend. The world's second largest economy has been in recovery mode for months. Now, consumers are starting to spend more, pushing retail sales up to 3.36 trillion yuan ($495 billion) in August, a 0.5% increase over the previous year. While small, the gain marks the first time sales have increased in 2020.
Chinese authorities touted the uptick at a monthly press conference Tuesday, and pointed out that the country is seeing economic improvement elsewhere, too.

"The job market has stabilized, and travel restrictions have loosened," said Fu Linghui, a spokesman for National Bureau of Statistics. "People are more willing to come out and spend."

China's recovery makes it an outlier as the pandemic weighs on the rest of the globe. The world's top economies — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — have shrunken dramatically in the first half of 2020. China was the only country for which the International Monetary Fund projected growth this year in its June forecast — it's expected to eke out a 1% increase.

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