China’s planners see signs of economy stabilizing

China's power usage, rail freight and property market have all shown improvement since August, indicating that the economy is stabilising, the country's top economic planning agency said on today.

The effects of supportive policies, including interest rate cuts, property market stimulus and local government debt swaps, will feed into the economy over the next few months and help underpin growth, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on its website.

"The power usage, rail freight, as well as real estate prices and turnover have all improved into August, indicating the economy is stabilising amid fluctuations," the NDRC said.

"The economy is expected to maintain steady growth and we are able to achieve annual economic growth target," it added.

A flurry of recent soft indicators - and a collapse in China's stock markets - had heightened fears of a hard landing for the world's second-biggest economy and sent global financial markets into a tailspin.

China's economy, which grew 7 per cent in the first half from a year earlier and in line with the government's target for the year, is headed for its slowest economic expansion in 25 years in 2015.

 The recent downbeat data, however, has raised the risk the government could miss the full-year growth target.

The National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that it had revised China's economic growth rate in 2014 to 7.3 per cent from the previously released figure of 7.4 per cent.

The NDRC cited data from the State Grid as saying that China's total power consumption in August rose 2.47 per cent on the year - the fastest growth so far this year and steady growth was likely to continue in September.

The average daily rail freight volume rose 1.6 per cent in August from July, the NDRC said

China's exports are likely to swing into positive growth in August from a 8.3 percent drop in July, the agency said without giving specifics.

The customs office is due to release August trade figures on Tuesday. Analysts polled by Reuters expected exports to drop 6.0 per cent in August compared with a year earlier.

(Also see: China lowers 2014 GDP growth to 7.3% from 7.4%)