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China's third quarter GDP rises 6.5 percent year-on-year

China's third quarter GDP rises 6.5 percent year-on-year

Posted October. 20, 2018 07:25,   

Updated October. 20, 2018 07:25

한국어

China GDP growth rate hit the lowest point since the Great Recession in the third quarter of the year. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Friday that the country’s GDP expanded 6.5 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of the year. The figure is the lowest growth rate since 6.4 percent that was posted in the first quarter of 2009, when the world was engulfed in the Great Recession. China’s quarterly GDP growth has continued to slide since recording 6.9 percent in the first quarter of 2017. The country’s GDP came to 6.8 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively, in the first and second quarters of this year.

Given that the average GDP growth rate over the past three quarters was 6.7 percent and that this year’s target is 6.5 percent, its GDP growth continues to be stable in general, the Chinese government says. “The national economy has operating on a stable basis overall under the leadership of the Communist Party’s Central Committee led by Comrade Xi Jinping despite complex and grave international politics, while the economic structure is constantly advancing,” the National Bureau of Statistics of China said in a statement on the day. “External uncertainty has grown, but it is expected that we will sufficiently cope with external pressure,” National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Mao Shengyong also told a press meeting.

Since China’s GDP growth has continued to slump, however, its GDP growth rate will take a bigger hit beginning in this year’s fourth quarter, when the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China will start to take its toll in earnest.


Oh-Hyuk Kwon hyuk@donga.com