“But the economic fundamentals remain unchanged, and the general employment situation is healthy”, said Sheng Laiyun, from China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Advertisement
He further made it clear in a written interview with Reuters on Sunday that “China’s economic development is adjusting to the new normal and experiencing growing pains of shifting from old drivers of growth to new ones”.
“All this suggests the restructuring and updating of the Chinese market are going steadily”.
France’s CAC 40 added 0.1 percent to 4,707.42 and Germany’s DAX rose 0.6 percent to 10,167.34. US shares were set for a weak open, with Dow and S&P 500 futures both down 0.2 percent.
This is the first time the quarterly growth rate had dropped under seven percent since the second quarter of 2009.
China’s economy logged its worst performance since the global financial crisis, official figures showed Monday, with analysts warning it is likely to worsen and the government must do more to avert a sharp slowdown. “But details of the activity data were mixed and somewhat disappointing”.
Industrial output in September rose 5.7 per cent from a year earlier, compared with economists’ median estimate of 6 percent. The economy of China which is the second largest economy in the world grew by 6.9 percent in the three months ended in September.
From January to September, around 3.16 million new companies were established in China, up 19.3 percent from a year ago, according to the latest data from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. Growth in retail sales picked up from 10.5 per cent in July to 10.9 per cent in September.
One highlight was the online spending, which surged 36.2 percent to 2.59 trillion yuan in the first nine months. Growth of 6.8 percent had been forecast by analysts.
On Monday, the Chinese government reported that its economy grew at a rate of 6.9 percent last quarter. “We should see more discrete announcements of fiscal stimulus to boost infrastructure investment”.
It has also made the economy more resilient and adaptable.
Analysts have known for a long time that China’s growth would slow. Also, there is weakening demand in real estate, which is contributing to excess capacity in the manufacturing sector.
Advertisement
“The overall downturn pressure on the Chinese economy is still huge”, said Zhou Hao, a senior economist at Commerzbank in Singapore, who expects the government will lower the annual growth target in its next five-year plan at the end of this month.
