"Double 11" shopping shows resilience of China's economy: Croatian expert

ZAGREB, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The number of express packages collected during "Double 11," China's shopping festival similar to Black Friday, has proven the resilience and strong recovery of China's economy from the COVID-19 pandemic, Kresimir Macan, a Croatian economic expert, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday.

"Many people have argued that the Chinese economy is facing bad days, that its production has fallen and that the forecast is bad. The latest data refutes them and shows the resilience and strong recovery of the Chinese economy," Macan said.

According to China's State Post Bureau, between Nov. 1 and Nov. 11, postal express companies across the country collected about 5.26 billion express packages, a year-on-year increase of 23.22 percent. On Nov. 11 alone, a total of 639 million express parcels were collected, which was 1.87 times the "normal" daily business volume and represented a year-on-year increase of 15.76 percent.

China's real gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to grow by 5.4 percent in 2023, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) statement said on Nov. 7. Macan noted that other financial institutions such as JP Morgan, the UBS and Deutsche Bank have also raised their forecasts for China's economic growth this year.

"All these point to the stability of the Chinese economy," Macan said, adding that the recovery is good for China as well as the world.