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| Emblem of Hong Kong (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Industrial output grew 9.2 percent, compared with a year earlier, and retail sales expanded 14.2 percent, the statistics office in Beijing said. Both figures beat expectations and improved on the expansions in August.
Similarly, investment in fixed assets rose 20.5 percent in the first nine months this year, from the comparable period in 2011, slightly better than analysts had expected, showing that stimulus measures announced by Beijing over the past year have gradually put a floor under the economy’s deceleration.
During the July-to-September quarter as a whole, gross domestic product expanded by 7.4 percent, compared with a year earlier, a figure that represented the slowest pace of growth since early 2009, when the global economy was reeling from the financial crisis.
The figure was in line with expectations, and it confirmed what analysts and executives from across a wide range of sectors had been saying for much of this year: That the heady days of double-digit expansion in China are a thing of the past, and that the economy has slowed markedly this year.
Weak overseas demand for Chinese exports and government policies aimed at combating inflation and soaring property prices have combined to brake the once red-hot pace of expansion. The picture for September appeared to show that the slowdown has, at least for now, come to an end.
“Clearly, concerns over continued slowdown can now be put to rest,” Dariusz Kowalczyk, an analyst at Crédit Agricole in Hong Kong, said in a research note. The data, he added, confirm “that growth is picking up and that China is not at risk of hard landing.”
Zhiwei Zhang, a China economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, said the data sent “very positive signals” and helped “reinforce our view that growth will rebound visibly” in the fourth quarter. ... Continue to read.
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