China’s GDP growth has eased by 0.1 percentage points in the third quarter compared to the strong performance posted in the first half of 2017.
Official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics indicates that year-on-year GDP growth for the July-September period was 6.8%, as compared to 6.9% for the first half of the year.
The Q3 GDP growth figure is in line with a survey of economists made by The Wall Street Journal.
China’s third quarter GDP also saw a 1.7% increase compared to to the preceding quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis, for a modest slowdown compared to on-quarter growth of 1.8% in the second quarter.
While the latest GDP data shows that China will likely breeze past the 6.5% growth target set by Beijing for 2017, it seems far less likely to meet the 7% forecast recently mooted by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan.
