People wearing face masks to protect against COVID-19 walk out of a subway station exit in Beijing, on Dec. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

       BEIJING (Kyodo) -- China on Friday revised down its inflation-adjusted economic growth rate for 2020 by 0.1 percentage point to 2.2 percent following data revisions.

       The pace of expansion in sectors like restaurant, tourism and real estate was slower than initially estimated, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.

       In 2020, China became the only major economy to achieve growth as other nations contracted in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

       But the pace of expansion was the slowest since the economy contracted in 1976, the final year of the 10-year-long Cultural Revolution initiated by Mao Zedong that historians say killed tens of millions of people.

       The Chinese government usually releases the nation's annual gross domestic product data in January every year.

       Recently, the outlook for the world's second-largest economy has become gloomier against a backdrop of electricity shortfalls and financial market turmoil.

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