currently running at 3.9%. which actually sounds like a very healthy growth figure compares many economies around the world. it does fall short of china s aim of 5.5% for this year. and there are signs some workers in china are tiring of the restrictions, with reports today of staff at the world s largest iphone factory facing off with police. mark schaubjoins me now, international partner at the law firm king & wood mallesons. and mark, one of your many roles there is actually you are in charge of private equity investment in china. you know china extremely well. give us your take on their zero covid positive and the impact is having on the fact that they cannot seem to keep control of the spread of covid?
uncertainty. ian king joins us from the city, and of course, he is talking on the day that we learn about gdp numbers as well. that s right. the gdp figures for january were actually pretty good. the growth figure came in at 0.8%, which was appreciably higher than anyone in the market had been expecting. the city consensus was growth of 0.2%, during the month, so much, much better than expected. obviously the economy contracted by 0.2% during december. what is interesting about all of this is it shows potentially that the economy is well on track to meet the growth forecast. and the bank of england is expecting gdp to grow by some 0.75% this year. so that is certainly the right way to go about reaching that sort of number. mr. sunak very, very worried about inflation, the potential of inflation picking up on the back of the war in ukraine. we obviously talked about oil
i know you are gauging the reaction to the possibility that the final easing of restrictions might be delayed by a few more weeks. what sort of impact would that have on the growth we are starting to see? yes, it is really interesting, you re right. that growth figure that looks back to april, we should be very aware this is a backward looking indicator, telling us what has already happened and quite rightly, the focus now is on what happens next. and that possible delay to reopening beyond the 21st ofjune has caused a lot of concern, particularly in the hospitality industry. but also for things like gymnasiums, cinemas as well, desperate to shake off the final restriction so they can properly open their doors and get people back in and filled their venues to capacity because a lot of businesses i ve been speaking to say yes, we may look like we are open but we are
confidence in the lira. meanwhile the political some of break here in europe has come to an end and things are starting to move in the euro zone let s get the details now from a man of the frankfurt stock exchange and that is none other than early good to see you first of all i believe we have some fresh economic data coming out from the block and it s not too bad. it s not too bad you know and economists they re factual people you don t see them waxing poetic a lot but today one of them said germany is on track for a golden decade with these g.d.p. numbers from the second quarter zero point five percent growth a healthy figure and more than people expected and what s more also the growth figure for the first quarter was revised upwards consumption strong consumers spending money contrary to the belief that germany german people save all their
rising at an annual rate of 2.6%, down slightly. starbucks announced it will use some of the savings from the gop tax cuts to give its u.s. workers pay raises, company stock and expanded benefits. all together the coffee chain said it would spend more than $250 million on its employees and create 8,000 retail jobs. we re back with dan henninger, kim strassel and mary 0 gaiddy. how do you read the 2.6% growth figure. down a little bit from what the economists expected. down below the 3% that he had seen in the second and third quarters but still strong and solid. representing a very strong spending spree by american consumers, reflecting optimism through thanksgiving and christmas and most importantly a