News Snapshot:
China’s better-than-expected economic growth last year moves it a step closer to supplanting the United States as the world’s No 1 economy, but a tumbling birth rate is adding to a host of recent pressures, including uncertainty from the Omicron variant. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 8.1 per cent last year, narrowly beating most market expectations and the government’s target of “above 6 per cent”. But GDP growth in the fourth quarter slowed to 4 per cent year on year, down from 4.9 per cent in the previous three months, hinting at more pain to come in 2022, amid...
