Growth during the third quarter was 4.9 percent compared with the corresponding quarter last year.

It was slightly smaller than expected.

Analysts had expected an average growth of 5.2 percent, according to a compilation of forecasts made by Reuters.

But that was significantly more than the growth of 3.2 percent in the second quarter, when consumption was still slowed by shutdowns.

Retail sales are increasing

Retail sales increased by 3.3 percent in September.

It is the largest Chinese retail increase since December last year and can be compared with the increase of 0.5 percent in August.

George Zhong from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in western China, says he has traveled to three other provinces in the country in the past two months, and also acts actively when he is at home.

"I spend no less than previous years," Zhong told The New York Times.

The GDP race

Consumption in China is still lagging behind in the industrial recovery, partly due to more unemployed and that demand among households is dampened by concerns about the spread of infection, despite the fact that many restrictions on slowing down the spread of coronavirus have been removed.

During the first quarter, China's GDP plummeted 6.8 percent year-on-year, following shutdowns in large parts of the country following the covid-19 outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

However, the GDP slump, the first since the 1990s in China, has recovered with great success since then.

If you combine the first nine months of the year, China's economy grew by 0.7 percent compared to a year earlier, according to the Chinese statistics agency NBS.

Increased activity

Activities among residents have now begun to resume, even in places like Wuhan.

"You have had to queue to get into many of the restaurants in Wuhan, and the restaurants that are popular on the internet are the waiting time of two to three hours," Lei Yanqui, a resident of Wuhan, told The New York Times.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that China's economy for the full year will grow by 1.9 percent.

This can be compared with the forecasts for the eurozone and the United States, which are minus 8.3 and minus 4.3 percent, respectively.