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发帖数: 11530 | 2 China’s GDP Growth Beats Forecasts as Stimulus Supports Spending
Bloomberg News
October 18, 2015 — 9:00 PM CDT
China’s economy expanded quicker than economists forecast in the third
quarter, suggesting monetary and fiscal stimulus is supporting growth and
keeping Premier Li Keqiang’s 2015 expansion target within reach.
Gross domestic product rose 6.9 percent in the three months through
September from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday
, beating economists’ estimates for 6.8 percent. Still, that was the
slowest quarterly expansion since the first three months of 2009, based off
previously announced data.
The economic resilience comes as a stronger services sector and robust
consumption help offset weakness in manufacturing and exports. The
government has cut interest rates five times since November and boosted
infrastructure spending in recent months to keep growth from sliding too far
below this year’s target for about 7 percent.
"The growth outlook remains subdued," Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at
Oxford Economics Ltd. in Hong Kong, wrote in a note before the data release
. "Further macroeconomic easing should follow, although there are no major
stimulus plans."
Industrial output in September rose 5.7 percent from a year earlier,
compared with economists’ median estimate of 6 percent. Retail sales
increased 10.9 percent, versus a 10.8 percent gain forecast for the month.
Fixed-asset investment climbed 10.3 percent in the first nine months from
the same period last year, compared to a median projection of a 10.8 percent
increase. That’s the slowest pace of gains since 2000.
Challenges have been mounting for China’s manufacturers as exports declined
last quarter and a slide in producer prices extended to a record 43 months.
That’s helping keep a lid on prices around the world, as China’s factory
and export prices tend to move in the same direction.
China affects the world more than ever, with Federal Reserve Chair Janet
Yellen last month citing concern about the world’s second-largest economy
among reasons for holding off from raising interest rates. China accounted
for 13.3 percent of global GDP last year, from less than 5 percent a decade
earlier, according to World Bank data.
Domestically, property investment and excess industrial capacity have
weighed on China’s traditional growth drivers, leaving the economy on track
for its slowest full-year expansion in 25 years.
While avoiding the kind of all-out stimulus deployed after the global
financial crisis, policy makers have deployed a variety of tools to cushion
the slowdown. The People’s Bank of China has cut interest rates to record
lows and reduced banks’ reserve requirement ratios, the finance ministry
has relaxed rules for local authorities to borrow, and the top economic
planning body has stepped up project approvals.
In the near term, positive signals appeared in lending data released by the
central bank last week as the broadest measure of new credit exceeded
estimates in September. Further out a deceleration looms, with China’s
leaders poised to lower their growth target for the next five years,
according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. |
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