China’s economy grew 7.9 per cent in fourth quarter
18 Jan 2013
China's economy registered a 7.9-per cent growth in the fourth quarter of last year from a year earlier, rebounding after seven straight quarters of slowdown, however, Beijing would need a measure of flexibility in its policy stance to support growth amid an uncertain global outlook.
The fourth-quarter uptick from 7.4 per cent in the third quarter, the lowest since the depths of the global financial crisis, saw growth in the full-year at 7.8 per cent, making 2012 the weakest year of economic expansion since 1999.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the figures were slightly stronger than market expectations in the consensus Reuters poll, which had pegged fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 7.8 per cent and put the full year at 7.7 per cent.
According to Ken Peng, an economist at BNP Paribas in Beijing, momentum at the end of the year was fairly strong but it was not really an astonishing rebound.
For the first half of this year the economy would continue to be fairly solid, though China's trend growth was still set to slow down.
On a quarterly, seasonally adjusted basis, the economy grew by 2.0 per cent as against 2.3 per cent seen in the Reuters poll.
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