WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Commerce Department released its first estimate on Jan. 26 local time, showing that U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, and GDP grew 2.1 percent for the full year of 2022.
The data show that U.S. GDP grew 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, down from 3.2 percent growth in the third quarter. for the full year 2022, U.S. GDP grew 2.1 percent, down from 5.9 percent growth in the full year 2021.
Specifically, in the fourth quarter of last year, accounting for about 70% of the total U.S. economy, personal consumption expenditures grew 2.1%, lower than the third quarter data; reflecting the state of business investment in non-residential fixed asset investment grew 0.7%, an increase significantly narrower than the third quarter; residential fixed asset investment plunged 26.7%, the data has been declining for seven consecutive quarters.
In addition, net exports pulled the quarter's economic growth of 0.56 percentage points; private inventory investment pulled the quarter's economic growth of 1.46 percentage points.
U.S. President Joe Biden said that day, the economic data "simply can not be better", "we are moving in the right direction".
Analysts believe that the Fed continues to raise interest rates, the U.S. economy will continue to slow down in the first quarter of 2023, the economy may fall into a "mild recession" in 2023.
In response to inflation, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates seven times in 2022. Last December, the Federal Reserve raised the target range for the federal funds rate by 50 basis points to a level of 4.25% to 4.5%.
According to U.S. Department of Labor data on Jan. 12, the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 6.5 percent year-over-year in December 2022, an increase that has seen six consecutive months of declines. The U.S. media expects that, with inflation "cooling off", the Fed may slow down the rate hike at the rate meeting that ends on Feb. 1 this year.
The U.S. Department of Commerce usually makes three estimates of quarterly economic data based on constantly improving information. Revised economic data for the fourth quarter of last year will be released on Feb. 23