(Yicai Global) July 16 -- China’s economy started growing again in the second quarter, recovering from a steep dive in the first three months of the year at the hands of the coronavirus.

Gross domestic product expanded 3.2 percent in the quarter ended June from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed today. That beat an average forecast for 2.37 percent made by 26 chief economists at major Chinese financial institutions surveyed by Yicai Global.

The world's second-largest economyhad contracted 6.8 percent in January to March, the first quarterly contraction since China beganreporting quarterly GDP in 1992, aseconomic activity wascurtailed bymeasures to prevent the spread of the virus. GDP had expanded 6.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019.

Huang Qunhui, director of the Economic Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said he expects a V-shaped recovery: a steep drop in first-quarter economic growth, followed by an upturn in the second before the expansion normalizes in this half ahead of high-speed growth in the first six months of 2021.

Production at factories also picked up pace last quarter along with an uptick in urban employment over the past two months, the NBS said. Plants ran at74.4 percent of capacity, up from 67.3 percent in the prior quarter. In the past few years, the rate has been generally over 75 percent but below 80 percent. Urban unemployment fell to 5.7 percent in June, an improvement on May's 5.9 percent.

But the day’s positive data failed to lift mainland stocks, with key market indexes all sharply down. Equities have pared gains in recent days aftera stellar rally since late June.

For the first half of this year, China’s GDP fell1.6 percent to CNY45.66 trillion (USD6.52 trillion), according to NBS data.

Editors: Ben Armour, Emmi Laine