lower level and we are now catching up with asia which traditionally has been on the higher energy level so we have lost the us and we have lost asia, we cannot hope that this will go away so we need to compensate for that in other areas. and you can see more of that interview with the e.on ceo, on talking business with aaron heslehurst this weekend, on the bbc news channel, bbc world news and bbc iplayer. to china now, where the ruling communist party is preparing for its annual gathering, the national people s congress, which starts in beijing on sunday. the npc sets the policy agenda for the coming year, and the weak state of the economy is one of the most pressing issues. covid lockdowns, a property slump, and a looming debt crisis saw china s gdp grow just 3% last year, the weakest in almost half a century, and well below the government s target. beijing based academic professor michael pettis has been telling us what the party might be planning to do about it.
first time since 1961. the kristie lu stout joins me. these are amazing numbers here, to see a population decline, and the working age population decline. walk us through what this means. reporter: yeah, it means that right now china is experiencing multiple headwinds and last year was a particularly challenging year. for 2022 china posted gdp growth of only 3% for the fourth quarter and 2.9% for the entire year. this presents a new demographic crisis for china. china right now is battling two economic headwinds at the present moment, the ongoing property slump. on top of that, the aftereffects of the zero covid policy. it absolutely wrecked its economy. provincial governments had to
hong kong. people talk about the one world policy. that went the way years ago. it went away from 2015 yet you see this very significant milestone being achieved today. china earlier today announcing that its population has shrunk for the first time in six decades. this includes the entire population including the working age population for china. in addition, we learned key economic growth data for china. it reported for 2022 that the year s economic growth, it grew 3%. it grew 2.9% year on year. right now china is dealing with a number of headwinds. at the moment it s dealing with an enormous property slump. the zero covid policy absolutely wrecked its policy. we have been learning they were forced to spend billions of
through covid and tries to move on from zero-covid to zero policy. all of the state of marks a depressing and two foot has been a deeply challenging year for china. 2022, china posting economic growth gdp growth for 3%. for the fourth quarter, china posted gdp growth of 2.9% year on year. and china s population is shrinking. it is shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. the total population now about 1.4 billion people. china right now is counting the cost of an ongoing and historic property slump. also the cost of its zero covid policy which absolutely wrecked its economy last. year so much so that provincial governments were forced to pay millions of dollars. in fact we learned recently that guangdong province. this mega economic powerhouse province in the south of china paid 22 billion u.s. dollars over the course of the pandemic
The European gas crisis, high inflation and the pace of global monetary policy tightening are taking a heavy toll on economic prospects, rating agency Fitch Rat