Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- China’s economy grew 18.3 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2021, as strong domestic and foreign demands power recovery from a low base in early 2020 when COVID-19 stalled the world’s second largest economy.

In Q1, retail sales went up 33.9 percent year on year to 10.5 trillion yuan (about 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars), reversing from declines in Q1 2020, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday, Xinhua reported.

China’s value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, went up 24.5 percent year on year in the first quarter this year as factory activities continued to pick up.