The IMF urged China to accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination program, warning that the sharply slowing pace of new doses administered could undermine a recovery in domestic consumer spending.
At the current pace, providing three doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the population would take a “matter of years,” Helge Berger, head of the IMF’s China mission, said in an interview.
With spending growth yet to recover to pre-pandemic rates, partly because households are cautious about COVID-19 infections, “an acceleration of the vaccination campaign would support confidence and ultimately consumption,” he said.
Photo: AP
About 375 million people over the age of 15 in China have yet to receive three doses of a vaccine, while the daily vaccination rate has fallen below 800,000 per day, official data show.
Studies have shown that three doses of China’s domestic COVID-19 vaccines were nearly as effective as mRNA vaccines in preventing severe infections or deaths.
The low rate of full vaccination, particularly among elderly people, is one of the reasons China is persisting with its strict “zero COVID” policy requiring limits on activity wherever virus cases occur.
Only about 64 percent of Chinese people over 60 have received three doses, the Chinese National Health Commission said.
Berger said the lockdowns in Shanghai and dozens of other cities since March are a key reason the IMF sees “downside risks” to its April forecast of 4.4 percent GDP growth for China this year.
“The second quarter will be weak given the lockdowns,” he said.
While national data have largely returned to pre-lockdown levels, Berger added that in Shanghai, measures of economic activity monitored by the IMF have recovered only to about 50 percent.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict growth of 4.1 percent in China this year and a possible contraction in quarter-on-quarter GDP in the April-June period. That makes it unlikely the government would meet its full-year target of about 5.5 percent.
The IMF has consistently called on Beijing to increase fiscal support to households. Even taking into account measures announced since April, China’s fiscal stimulus this year is smaller relative to 2020, Berger added.
“The known fiscal measures this year are still small relative to 2020, even taking into account that in 2020 the overall shock was larger than this year,” he said.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS