Chinese Premier Li Keqiang previous year had said that the Chinese government targeted an annual economic growth of around seven per cent for 2015.
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China’s economy grew by 6.9% in 2015, compared with 7.3% a year earlier, marking its slowest growth in a quarter of a century.
Some analysts believe the growth figures are lower than being officially reported, with numbers dropping towards 6.8% growth in Q4. The slowdown has rippled around the world, crimping demand for South Korean electronics and Australian iron ore as well as Middle East oil and Brazilian soy.
Uncertainty over the outlook for the Chinese economy, a key driver of global growth, has roiled worldwide markets lately.
The Communist party is widely expected to lower the growth target this year, and President Xi Jinping has said expansion of 6.5pc will be sufficient for China’s needs.
China’s Shanghai Composite jumped 3.2% following the announcement and other Asian markets also rose.
While old engines in China’s economy-investment and trade-lost steam, services and consumption took the reins.
China registered growth of 7.3 per cent in 2014.
Only crude oil escaped the downturn, with refinery throughput hitting a new record in December and rising 3.8% to 10.44 million barrels per day in the year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.
“The task of comprehensively deepening the reform is still heavy”, the body said.
Nominal fixed asset investment growth remained flat at 10.2 percent year-on-year in December while real growth of value added in industry weakened from 6.2 percent in November to 5.9 percent in December.
On a quarter-on-quarter basis, economic growth eased to 1.6 percent in the fourth-quarter, versus expectations of 1.7 percent and down from 1.8 percent in the third quarter.
The growth picture remains two-sided. In real-terms, the FAI data appeared to be “slightly less weak” the same economist said.
“Meanwhile, though, consumption continued to expand robustly, supported by solid wage growth”. For a lot of companies, what matters for them are the nominal figures amid deep industrial deflation and that’s why many market players think the official figures are better than how things really are. “This isn’t just a Chinese problem, it is a global one, but core Chinese debt (loans to the non-financial sector) has mushroomed from 187% of GDP to 244% of GDP since the end of the great financial crisis in 2009”.
Policy stimulus helped growth in the industry and construction sectors edge up for the first time since second quarter of 2014. But the cooling in economic activities noted of late has brought in worries that conditions in the second-largest economy of the world may be deteriorating fast.
With nominal GDP growth in services exceeding that in the secondary sector by an unprecedented margin, the share of the tertiary sector in overall GDP rose a whopping 2.5 percentage points to 50.5 percent in 2015.
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Zhao Yang of Nomura reiterated the bank’s 5.8pc forecast for 2016 due to “strong headwinds” and overcapacity in manufacturing, along with an excess supply of property.
