File photo: A worker makes a giant lantern in a lantern factory in Zhoucun District of Zibo, east China’s Shandong Province [Xinhua]The world’s second largest economy grew 6.8 per cent year on year in the first three quarters of 2017 to 59.3288 trillion yuan (about $8.9614 trillion), data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed Thursday.
The expansion in the third quarter beat market expectations and growth this year is on track to meet the government’s target of 6.5 per cent.
“The Chinese economy has maintained steady growth with a positive outlook in the first three quarters,” NBS spokesperson Xing Zhihong told reporters in Beijing.
The service sector expanded 7.8 percent year on year in the first three quarters, outpacing a 3.7-percent increase in primary industry and 6.3 percent in secondary industry, NBS data shows.
Retail sales grew 10.3 per cent in September from a year earlier.
People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan on Sunday said China’s GDP could grow 7 per cent in the second half of this year.
On Wednesday Chinese President Xi Jinping told the Communist Party Congress that China has entered a new era where it should take centre-stage in the world.
China’s ruling Communist Party opened its 19th Congress on Oct. 18.
The five-yearly Congress elects about 370 full and alternate members of the party’s elite Central Committee in a session lasting about one week.
TBP and Agencies