China Economy

The pace of China's economic growth slowed in the second quarter as weaker global demand and government policies aimed at reining in excess liquidity and runaway property prices moderated the world's second-largest economy. Official data released Wednesday showed China's economy still grew by a blistering 9.5% April through June compared with the same period a year ago. That's down only slightly from the 9.7% in the first three months of the year, suggesting the country could face more government measures to cool the economy.

BEIJING - China's economy rebounded in the fourth quarter, softening the blow of its slowest annual growth in a decade. China's gross domestic product beat expectations by rising 7.9% in the quarter from a year earlier, the result of increased infrastructure spending and relaxed monetary policy. For the year, China expanded 7.8% in 2012, its slowest rate of growth since 1999 and well below the 9.3% recorded in 2011 and 10.4% in 2010. "China's economic growth has slowed down, but it has been stable," said Ma Jiantang, head of China's National Bureau of Statistics, at a news conference Friday.

As the West reassesses China 10 years after Tiananmen and after recent disclosures of Chinese espionage, critics of U.S. commercial overtures to that huge country are missing the point. The point of fostering China's successful economic development is not to make profits for U.S. companies, but to prevent China from becoming a political or economic menace to Asia and the world.

BEIJING - China's coldest winter in nearly three decades sent vegetable prices soaring and drove inflation to a seven-month high in December. Consumer prices rose 2.5% from December a year earlier, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Friday, up from 2% year-over-year growth in November. A key reason for concern is that rising inflation could restrict China's ability to stimulate growth if its tepid recovery loses momentum. Higher food prices also worry the Chinese government because discontent rises when poorer people have to pay a bigger share of their income on food.

China is trumpeting near-record economic growth in the first half of 1988 but has acknowledged danger signals that could stop expansion. The Economic Daily said Friday that industrial output in the first six months rose 17.2% more than the same 1987 period, the second-highest figure for the half-year in the last decade. In the four coastal provinces of Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong and Shandong output soared by an average of 26.9%.

China's economic reform program, now approaching its 10th anniversary, has lost its sense of goals and direction, and in recent years the income of some Chinese city dwellers has been dropping, the Central Intelligence Agency reported Sunday. The CIA portrayed the Chinese leadership as divided over the future direction of Chinese Communism.

When attorney Tom Moore raced from his Hong Kong office to an urgent meeting in Shanghai early last year, he pondered one of the East's more modern mysteries: Would Shanghai's notorious gridlock make his cab ride from the airport longer than his one-hour and 45-minute flight from Hong Kong? Moore now schedules his meetings in Shanghai and Beijing as he would in Los Angeles: at a hotel near the airport.

On hearing of the big U.S.-China trade deal this week, workers at Huadu Chicken Co. fell into active discussions of their own situation, a scene replayed in thousands of offices and factories across China. Chickens eat lots of corn, and the company could now have access to American corn that's almost 20% cheaper than local varieties, so that's a plus.

Kick-started by massive government spending, China's economy grew 7.8% this year at a time when the rest of Asia dropped into recession. Though the figure announced Wednesday fell slightly short of the targeted 8% growth rate for gross domestic product, it was considered a political and economic victory for a country facing dire financial pressures at home and from abroad. But economists say 1999 will be much tougher, as the country starts to grapple with reforms that were delayed this year.

Zhang Xiandi, head of a rural synthetic thread factory near Shanghai, talks like a hard-driving capitalist entrepreneur. "Some factories from neighboring provinces were selling this kind of thread in the Shanghai area, but after we started production, we ran them out of here," Zhang said in a recent interview, a triumphant grin flashing across her face. "The quality of our product was better, and we provide good service to customers."

BEIJING -- The Chinese economy was deluged with promising news Friday after officials released October data that showed consumer price inflation slowing to its weakest pace in three years and industrial production and investment stabilizing. The positive indicators come days before China unveils its new Communist Party rulers during a once-a-decade power transition. The country's previously overheated economy has slowed for seven consecutive quarters, heightening pressure on the central government to expedite badly needed reforms.

YUEQING, China - A shipbuilding boom raised the fortunes of this hardscrabble industrial port. Five-star hotels sprouted along with machinery depots and metal shops. European luxury cars darted past heavy trucks on the bustling streets. But in another sign ofChina'seconomic slowdown, shipyards are now closing and half-finished vessels lie rusting in the humid haze. Prosperity is receding like the tide. Thousands of laborers have lost their jobs. Liu Danyin, a compact man with bulging forearms, found so much work in the region's shipyards over the last decade that he built a new home for his family hundreds of miles away in the countryside.

BEIJING - China's economy appears to be weakening more rapidly than official statistics would suggest, raising fears of a painful slowdown that could be felt around the globe. Second-quarter gross domestic product statistics to be released this week are expected to show growth of around 7.5% compared with the same period last year, according to analysts' estimates. That would be the slowest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis. But government data are widely believed to understate the extent of China's woes.

China has lowered its official growth target for 2012, sending the clearest message yet that the world's second-largest economy isn't likely to keep expanding at its previous steroid-charged pace. Speaking to about 3,000 delegates Monday at the annual meeting of the National People's Congress in Beijing, Premier Wen Jiabao said China would cut its annual gross domestic product growth target for the first time in eight years, to 7.5% annual growth from 8%, to make the country's economy more "sustainable and efficient.

China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 21/2 years in the final three months of 2011, weighed down by shrinking exports, tighter bank lending and a cooling real estate market. The country's gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 8.9% in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with 9.8% in the year-earlier period, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. For the year, the world's second-largest economy expanded 9.2%, down from 10.4% in 2010. Although still strong compared with that of other major economies, China's economic growth is slowing uncomfortably fast for the country's leadership.

China's economy expanded in the third quarter at its slowest pace in two years, a sign that Beijing's inflation-fighting efforts are reining in growth. The country's gross domestic product grew 9.1% compared with the same period last year, China's National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. That was down from 9.5% in the previous three months and 9.7% in the first quarter. Third-quarter growth was slightly below economists' forecasts. The government has been tightening bank credit to tame inflation and deflate a worrisome housing bubble.

Before the rains began, 1991 was projected as a year of recovery for China's sluggish economy, and local officials had hopes of matching last year's record harvest. But all that is in doubt now, after two months of punishing downpours caused the worst floods in a century in the Yangtze River Valley and serious floods in other parts of the country. "It is necessary to mobilize the whole nation to help the flood-stricken areas," Premier Li Peng ordered this week.

In life, Deng Xiaoping is credited with helping to spur a massive transformation of China's centrally controlled economy and its ties to the West. But the passing of China's "paramount leader," experts say, probably will have little effect on what has become one of Asia's most vibrant economies.

The pace of China's economic growth slowed in the second quarter as weaker global demand and government policies aimed at reining in excess liquidity and runaway property prices moderated the world's second-largest economy. Official data released Wednesday showed China's economy still grew by a blistering 9.5% April through June compared with the same period a year ago. That's down only slightly from the 9.7% in the first three months of the year, suggesting the country could face more government measures to cool the economy.