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China's GDP up 9.9% in Jan-Sept period

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-20 10:08

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 9.9 percent year on year to 20.16 trillion yuan ($2.96 trillion) in the first three quarters of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

An employee works at a textile factory in Hefei, Anhui province October 20, 2008. China's gross domestic product grew 9.9 percent year on year to 20.16 trillion yuan ($2.96 trillion) in the first three quarters of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.  [Agencies]

The growth rate was 2.3 percentage points lower than the same period of last year, or 0.5 percentage points lower than the first quarter of this year.

The GDP growth was 10.6 percent for the first quarter, 10.1 percent for the second quarter and 9 percent for the third quarter, the bureau said.

NBS Chief Economist Yao Jingyuan told Xinhua that the GDP growth for the January-September period was still higher than the 9.8-percent average for the past three decades.

Given the ongoing global economic slowdown, China's GDP growth for the first three quarters "is a hard-earned achievement,"said Yao.

"It was achieved on the basis of the current macro-control efforts,"he added.

The total GDP for the January-September period included 2.18 trillion yuan generated by the primary sector, up 4.5 percent, 10.11 trillion yuan by the secondary sector (including manufacturing and construction), up 10.5 percent, and 7.87 trillion yuan by the tertiary sector (mainly services), up 10.3 percent.

The growth rates for the primary sector was 0.2 percentage points higher than the year-earlier level, but that for the secondary and tertiary sectors were 3.0 percentage points and 2.4 percentage points lower respectively.

Li Xiaochao, the NBS spokesman, noted that the 9.9 percent growth was achieved on a large economic volume.

According to Li, the fundamentals of the Chinese economy remains good. This is marked by the facts that the economic growth is stable and fast, consumer prices continues to fall, industrial structure has optimized more or less and that the quality of economic operation has improved.

From January to September, fixed-asset investment amounted to 11.62 trillion yuan nationwide, up 27.0 percent on the same period of last year. The growth rate was 1.3 percentage points higher.

The total included 9.987 trillion yuan in urban areas, up 27.6 percent, and 1.638 trillion yuan in rural areas, up 23.3 percent. The growth rates were 1.2 percentage points and 2.1 percentage points, respectively, higher than the year-earlier level.

Consumer price index, or CPI, went up 7.0 percent year-on-year in the first nine months. The growth rate was 2.9 percentage points higher than the year-ago level, but down 0.9 percentage points from the first-half-year level.

The major inflation measurement was up 4.6 percent in September, 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous month. Its rise rate has fallen for five consecutive months since May.

However, the producer price index (PPI), which measures the value of finished products when they leave the factory, rose 8.3 percent in the first nine months, said the bureau. The growth rate was 5.6 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

In September alone, the PPI rose 9.1 percent over the same month a year earlier. The growth rate was one percentage point lower than the record 10.1 percent in August.

Li said the economic restructuring has proceeded well. In the first three quarters, high-energy-consuming sectors realized an output growth of 13.2 percent, down 6.4 percentage points, while the high-tech manufacturing sector posted a growth of 16.5 percent in value-added output, 1.3 percentage points higher than the average for all major manufacturers.

Meanwhile, western and central regions outperformed the eastern areas in terms of production and investment growth, he added.

Between January and August, industrial enterprises each with an annual sales income of at least five million yuan chalked up a profit increase of 19.4 percent.

The per-capita pure income of rural residents was 3,971 yuan, gaining 11 percent in real-term, and the per-capita disposable income of urbanites was 11,865 yuan, up 7.5 percent in real-term, Li added.