China’s annual growth clocked 7.7 per cent in Q1

China's annual growth clocked 7.7 per cent in the January to March quarter, as against 7.9 per cent in the previous three months,  slightly lower than 8 per cent that analysts had forecast.

Other key data on Monday also failed to come up to market expectations, raising questions over the outlook for growth.

Industrial output was up 8.9 per cent in March from a year earlier, much lower than analysts' target of 10 per cent.

Though, fixed asset investment, a key driver of China's growth, rose at an annual rate 20.9 per cent in the first three months of the year it was lower than the expected growth of over 21 per cent.

According to analysts, the Chinese economy was showing soft growth momentum in the first quarter. They add all the figures showed that the economy was in a weak recovery.

They add, given Beijing's goal of restructuring the economy, a relatively moderate economic growth was not a bad thing in the longer term.

China's urban fixed asset investment in the first quarter of 2013 showed a 20.9-per cent increase over the same period last year to 5.81 trillion yuan (929.47 billion US dollars), according to new data.

The growth equalled that of the first quarter of 2012, but stood 0.3 percentage points higher than that of the entire year of 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Investment in the agricultural sector rose 31.4 per cent to 93 billion yuan, while investment in industry grew 16.2 per cent to 2.46 trillion yuan. The service sector saw a 24.5-per cent increase to hit 3.25 trillion yuan.

China's western regions saw the fastest growth of 24.2 per cent followed by a 24.1 per cent growth in central China and 19.4 per cent in the country's east.

According to the bureau, investment by state-owned enterprises and their holding companies surged by 18.7 per cent year on year, while investment by private investors was up 24.1 per cent.

Investment in property development increased 20.2 per cent, down 3.3 percentage points over the same period of last year, according to the NBS.

This quarter saw a total of 208.98 million square metres of property sold, which was up 37.1 per cent year on year and the growth rate was 35.3 percentage points higher than the whole of 2012.

The first quarter of 2012, saw the amount of property space sold fall 13.6 percentage points from that of 2011.