A senior Chinese official said here Thursday that the negative
impact on the country's national economy by the severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS) started to show symptoms in the second
quarter of this year.
Yao Jingyuan, the spokesman and chief economist of China's National
Bureau of Statistics (NBS), briefed reporters in a press conference
on Thursday that the growth rate of China's Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) dropped to 6.7 percent in the second quarter, 3.2 percentage
points lower than that in the first quarter.
The growth rate of the tertiary industry only climbed 0.8 percent,
down 6.1 percent of that of same time last year, Yao added.
The NBS statistics showed that sectors of passenger transportation,
catering, social service and tourism are hardest-hit ones by the
SARS epidemic.
Passenger transportation volumes dropped 23.9 percent during the
time, and the air passenger transportation volume shrank almost
half, said the NBS statistics.
The NBS also reported a sharp decrease of the growth rate of the
domestic sales, adding that the retail sales of consumption items
only increased 6.7 percent, 2.5 percent lower than that of the
first quarter.
(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2003)
