China lowers 2014 GDP growth to 7.3% from 7.4%

China's gross national product (GDP) grew at an annual rate of 7.3 per cent to 63.64 trillion yuan ($10 trillion) in 2014 against 58.80 trillion yuan ($9.24 trillion) in 2013, marginally lower than the 7.4 per cent growth estimated earlier.

A statement issued by China's National Bureau of Statistics today said the country's GDP was down 32.4 billion yuan than initially estimated.

The new figure of 7.3 per cent is the lowest growth rate registered by the Chinese economy since 1990, when growth plummeted to 3.9 per cent.

The figure coming amidst the stock market rout and the pummeling of the yuan, however, do not support concerns of any major slowdown in expansion in the world`s second-largest economy.

The National Bureau of Statistics had, in January, projected the Chinese economy to have grown by 7.4 per cent in 2014, based on preliminary data.

Worries over a Chinese meltdown had pushed global stock markets to their biggest lows in recent years (See: US stocks fall as Chinese markets crash).

The Chinese economy, which has been growing at a tepid double-digit rate since the '90s, is into a difficult phase of slowing growth that has been led by a combination of investments and exports and is trying a rebalancing act to sustain growth and investment.

The service sector, which is expected to take over from manufacturing as the economy progresses, grew at a slower pace of 7.8 per cent against the 9.1 per cent growth estimated earlier.

The bureau has estimated 2014 growth in the primary sector, ie, the agriculture sector, at 4.1 per cent in 2014, while growth of the secondary sector, which includes manufacturing and construction, rose 7.3 per cent.

The service sector is now estimated to have accounted for 48.1 per cent of GDP last year, down from the previously announced 48.2 per cent, the bureau said. The manufacturing and construction sector accounted for 42.7 per cent of GDP while the farm sector accounted for 9.2 per cent.

China's economy grew 7 per cent in the first half of the current year and the downward revision of last year's data could bring down real growth in 2015 further down.