China’s economy expanded 4.6% year on year in the third quarter, official data showed on Friday, slower than in the previous three months, underlining faltering growth as Beijing steps up stimulus efforts.
The figures came as China’s central bank gave more details of a scheme to encourage non-bank financial institutions to invest in the stock market, driving mainland China’s CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks up 3.6%.
The economic growth figure is the lowest in 18 months, below the government’s full-year target of 5 per cent and less than the 4.7 per cent recorded in the three months to June as sluggish consumption and a property slump weighed on household sentiment.
The softer growth will underscore the need for more support from Beijing, which in late September announced its biggest monetary stimulus since the pandemic and followed up with promises of heavy fiscal spending.
“The Chinese economy is caught in a doom loop, with cyclical and structural problems feeding off and reinforcing each other,” said Eswar Prasad, professor at Cornell University and senior fellow at Brookings. He said the combination of declining growth, deflation and loss of confidence in the government’s policies, along with the “unravelling property sector and unfavourable demographics”, posed enormous challenges. (https://www.ft.com)
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