China's economic growth ebbed to 9.6 percent in the third quarter, a moderate slowdown that economists say is a sign the government has managed to keep the world's second-largest economy on a sustainable path.
Inflation rose to a two-year high of 3.6 percent in September, above this year's 3 percent target but still within market forecasts.
The two figures had been expected to be much higher after the central bank surprised the market Tuesday with its first interest rate increase in nearly three years, but the data was generally in line with previous consensus. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell slightly to 2,983 points Thursday, down 0.68 percent in the wake of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.
Following increases of 11.9 percent in the first quarter and 10.3 percent in the second, the NBS announced Thursday that China's gross domestic product in the third quarter grew 9.6 percent over the same period last year.
Industrial production expansion, a key indicator of growth momentum, slowed to 13.3 percent year-on-year in September from 13.9 percent in August, due to controls on highly polluting and energy-intensive industries, Sheng Laiyun, NBS spokesman, said Thursday.
Much of the slowdown can be explained by a higher base of comparison after last year's rebound from the financial crisis, and the figure is almost parallel on a quarter-to-quarter basis, Wang Tao, an economist at global financial services firm US told the Global Times.
GDP growth in the last quarter will slow slightly, Zhang Xiaojing, a senior researcher on macroeconomy at the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, predicted. But Zhang told the Global Times that there is no need to worry, as the government is steering the economy to grow in a more scientific and sustainable way.
"China's economy is still robust, and the growth pattern is starting to shift toward a more stable and sustainable way," Wang said, adding that annual growth this year will reach 10 percent and slow to 9 percent in 2011.
A more worrying issue for the government will be the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which hit a 23-month high of 3.6 percent in September and rose 2.9 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of this year, approaching the government's target ceiling of 3 percent set at the start of 2010.
China might see a continued CPI rise, Tian Yun, an expert on macroeconomics at the China Macro Economics Institute, said, given that food prices, which account for about one third in calculating the CPI, climbed 8 percent year-on-year in September.
Wang, of US echoed Tian's idea by predicting that the figure will peak at 4 percent in October.
But the CPI figure in September was in line with market forecasts, according to Lu Ting, a China economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, in an e-mail to the Global Times.
"If we take into account (China's) holiday schedule, September CPI inflation should be adjusted downward a bit," Lu said.
In a surprise move Tuesday, the People's Bank of China announced the first interest-rate rise since the end of 2007. The country's one-year lending and deposit rate was raised by 0.25 percentage points from Wednesday.
Some analysts assumed that the move meant the GDP and CPI figures would be much higher than expected, but they were largely in line with analysts' predictions.
"China's interest-rate increase was an attempt to keep a lid on inflation expectations and rein in the soaring property market. And it also suggests that the Chinese government is quite confident and positive regarding the prospects of the economy," Wang said. |
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