China’s GDP slows

Beijing, (IANS) China’s economy grew 7.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2012, slower from 7.6 percent in the second quarter and 8.1 percent in the first, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

The growth rate has slowed for the seventh straight quarter. However, it was in line with economists’ predictions that third-quarter economic output would grow by between 7.4-7.5 percent in the world’s second-largest economy, reported Xinhua.

GDP reached 35.35 trillion yuan ($5.61 trillion) in the first three quarters of 2012, NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun told a press conference.

“GDP grew 7.7 percent in the first three quarters, and the economy is generally stable,” Sheng said. During the first half, the GDP grew 7.8 percent.

“Compared with the first half, we have seen some improvements in the third quarter,” he said. Despite the growth slide, Sheng said that the economy had been stabilizing, especially since September.

He said a slew of evidence backed this, citing the trade rebound and other major economic indicators that showed growth picking up.

NBS data released Thursday showed total retail sales in September hit 1.82 trillion yuan, up 14.2 percent year-on-year, with the growth rate 1.46 percentage points higher than in August.

Fixed asset investment rose 20.5 percent year-on-year to 25.69 trillion yuan in the first nine months, with the growth rate accelerating slightly by 0.1 percentage point from the first half of 2012.

Industrial value-added output grew 10 percent in the first nine months of the year, 0.5 percentage point lower than growth in the first six months of 2012.

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Posted by admin on October 18, 2012. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry