China’s GDP rose 6.9% in first three quarters

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China’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 6.9 percent in the first three quarters of 2017 from the previous year to 59.33 trillion yuan (about 8.96 trillion US dollars), data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Thursday.

“The economy has maintained a medium-high growth rate within the range of 6.7 percent to 6.9 percent for nine consecutive quarters," said Xin Zhihong, spokesman from NBS at a news conference.

The growth rate stayed relatively stable from a 6.9 percent increase in the first half of 2017 and is above the government’s 6.5 percent target for the year, reflecting a continued firming trend in the economy.

The country’s third-quarter GDP growth was 6.8 percent year-on-year, a tad lower than the 6.9 percent in the second quarter, according to NBS data.

“The data shows that some deleveraging is continuing and government reforms are working but growth is still being supported at a reasonable rate," said Kaori Yamato, senior economist at the Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo.

The service sector expanded 7.8 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of the year, outpacing a 3.7 percent increase in primary industry and 6.3 percent in secondary industry, NBS data showed.

Retail sales in September grew 10.3 percent from a year ago, while final consumption accounts for 64.5 percent of GDP growth in the first three quarters.

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In the property sector, growth in new construction slowed, while property sales dropped for the first time in more than two and a half years in September.

The income gap between China’s urban and rural residents continued to narrow, with the real growth of per capita disposable income in rural areas are 0.9 percentage points higher than that in urban regions, NBS data showed.

“China has continued better-than-expected economic growth, and the supply-side reform, state-owned enterprises reform, and Belt and Road Initiative mentioned at the 19th CPC National Congress will continue to drive economic growth,” said Liu Dongliang, an analyst with China Merchants Bank.

“In the future, China's economic downturn will be more moderate,” he concluded.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency