China's economic growth slowed to 9 per cent in the third quarter as global financial woes started taking a toll, the Government said yesterday, signalling it would respond with new stimulus measures.
It was the first time since late 2005 that quarterly growth slipped into single digits, providing the most powerful indication yet that China was not insulated from the international economic downturn.
Announcing the data, China's National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Li Xiaochao said, ''The growth rate of the world economy has slowed down noticeably.
''There are more uncertain and volatile factors in the international economic climate. All these factors have started to release their negative impact on China's economy.''
As a result of the slowdown in the period from July to September, growth in the world's fourth-largest economy weakened to 9.9 per cent over the first three quarters of the year. This was down from 10.4 per cent in the first half of 2008 and 12.2 per cent in the first three quarters of 2007.
A Beijing-based economist with consulting firm Global Insight, Ren Xianfang, said, ''In China, any growth lower than 10 per cent is a signal that the economy is getting sluggish, and that the outlook isn't good.''
The Government signalled ahead of the issuing of the data the need for new measures to boost growth had moved to the top of the policy-making agenda.
''There is the slowing trend in economic growth, the pace in the rise of corporate profits and fiscal revenue are falling, and the capital markets continue to swing and be sluggish,'' it said yesterday in a summary of a cabinet meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.
China's trade surplus for the first nine months of the year reached $US180.9billion ($A261.2billion), down 2.6per cent year-on-year, the customs administration said earlier.
Confirming the trend for a slowdown in the heavily export-dependent economy, industrial output growth was 15.2 per cent in the first three quarters of 2008, down from 16.3 per cent in the first half, the statistics bureau said.
For the month of September alone, industrial output growth was 11.4 per cent.
As exports were slowing, fixed-asset investments, a key gauge of government spending on infrastructure and factories, rose 27 per cent in the first three quarters of 2008, compared with 26.3 per cent in the first half, the bureau said. Mr Li said although the global economic turndown had affected China's economic growth, the nation's accumulated wealth, high savings and untapped consumer spending left room for optimism.
''China is still capable of warding off the potential negative impact of the global economic turndown,'' he said. Retail sales, a main indicator of consumer spending, increased 22 per cent in the first three quarters of 2008 compared with a year earlier, while rising by 23.2 per cent in the month of September, he said.
The figures issued yesterday showed inflation continued to slow, standing at 7 per cent in the first three quarters of 2008, and 4.6 per cent for September alone.
The figures compared with 7.9 per cent inflation in the first half of 2008, and a near 12-year high of 8.7 per cent recorded for the month of February. AFP