BEIJING: China’s economic growth held steady at 7.3 per cent in the fourth quarter from 2014, slightly better than expected but still hovering at its weakest since the global financial crisis, keeping pressure on policymakers to head off a sharper slowdown.
The world’s second-largest economy grew 7.4 per cent in the whole of 2014, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, undershooting the government’s 7.5 per cent target and the weakest expansion in 24 years.It was the first since 1999 that the government had missed a yearly growth target for gross domestic product (GDP).
The China statistics bureau said at a news conference that the economy faces difficulties but it will keep growth within a “reasonable range.”
A series of incremental market reforms and modest stimulus measures over the year did little to reverse a slowdown in the property market, and industrial overcapacity, slowing investment and erratic exports remain challenges for policymakers this year.
However, if Beijing’s goal was allow a modest slowdown in the name of pushing painful reforms without setting off a collapse, then 2014 could be viewed as a qualified success; reported unemployment rates remain low and social unrest appears contained for now.
This is the best possible miss you could have from a messaging standpoint,” said Andrew Polk, economist at the Conference Board in Beijing.
The government is saying, ‘we’re not married to this specific target, we missed it and we’re okay.’ That seems to me a quite positive development.”
