China's GDP growth slows to 7.4% in 2014: govt

[BEIJING] China's gross domestic product (GDP) rose 7.4 per cent in 2014, official data showed Tuesday, slumping to a 24-year low as authorities in the world's second-largest economy talk of a "new normal" of slowing expansion.

The 2014 figure announced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was below growth of 7.7 percent in 2013, but exceeded the median forecast of 7.3 percent in an AFP survey of 15 economists.

GDP also expanded 7.3 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of last year, the NBS said, matching the 7.3 per cent result in the third quarter and beating the 7.2 per cent median forecast in the survey.

"China's economy has achieved stable progress with improved quality under the new normal in 2014," the NBS said in a statement. "However we should also be aware that the domestic and international situations are still complicated and economic development is facing difficulties and challenges."

The full-year result was the worst since the 3.8 per cent recorded in 1990 and comes as one of the pillars of the global economy was hit last year by troubles including manufacturing and trade weakness as well as declining prices for real estate, which has sent a shock through the country's key property sector.

The government had set an official expansion target of "about" 7.5 per cent for last year. The goal is traditionally pegged at a level that is easily achieved, and is usually approximated to provide room for positive spin just in case.

The 2014 result is the first miss since 1998 during the Asian economic crisis.

The NBS also said that industrial production, which measures output at factories, workshops and mines, rose 7.9 per cent year-on-year in December.

Retail sales, a key indicator of consumer spending, increased 11.9 per cent in the same month, while fixed asset investment, a measure of government spending on infrastructure, expanded 15.7 per cent on-year for the whole of 2014.