Quarter-on-quarter growth was slightly below expectations at 1.6 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said at a news conference on Tuesday. The sequential growth was also expected to remain steady at 1.8 percent.
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Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 6.9 per cent previous year, down from 7.3 per cent in 2014.
China’s home prices continued to rise in December, up 7.7 per cent from a year earlier, quickening from November’s 6.5 per cent rise, NBS said on Monday.
The 6.9 percent economic expansion rate is an impressive figure from a global perspective, with China contributing more than 2 percent to global economic growth a year ago.
For our part, we believe that the official GDP figures have become a poor gauge of the economy’s performance in recent years and now overstate growth by a wide margin.
Yet that trust has been challenged by perceived policy missteps over the yuan and stock markets, giving weight to a voluble clique of China bears who claim unbearably-high debt levels and massive overcapacity are bound to end in tears.
He told Bloomberg News that “2015 was a turning point in China’s development because it represented a clear break from the old growth model”.
“[The] health of the labour market, retail sales and industrial production data are all key indicators for growth”, said Catherine Yeung from Fidelity International in a note.
In recent weeks, the central bank has attempted to guide the yuan lower against the US dollar, a move that many analysts have interpreted as an effort to aid Chinese exporters and prop up weakening economic growth.
China’s economic growth ebbed to a 25-year low in 2015 as trade and consumer spending weakened, deepening a downturn that has fueled anxiety overseas over its impact on an uncertain global outlook. Economists had expected 6.9 per cent.
“The balance between demand and supply in the cities we’re in has improved a lot…so we don’t need to push for destocking in these cities”, said an official of state-backed China Resources Land (1109.HK), with 74 percent of its projects in major cities.
China’s economy slowed in December, capping the weakest quarter of growth since the 2009 global recession, as the Communist leadership struggles to manage a transition to consumer-led expansion.
Economists had expected investment growth would come in at 10.2 per cent – the same rate as in the first 11 months of 2015.
“While higher consumption can support growth in the short run, there is little in economic theory that emphasises the expenditure side of GDP as a driver of growth”, HSBC’s John Zhu said in a note.
But the growth data released Tuesday didn’t appear to trouble investors.
Those concerns have driven, at least in part, a sharp drop in China’s stock markets recently.
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Month-on-month, industrial output increased 0.41 per cent in December from November, when output rose 0.58% from October.
