China cuts 2014 GDP growth from 7.4% to 7.3%: govt

[BEIJING] China on Monday lowered its GDP growth figure for last year by 0.1 percentage points to 7.3 per cent, official figures showed, as concerns mount over slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy.

The National Bureau of Statistics said on its website it lowered the figure from the 7.4 per cent announced in January after a "preliminary confirmation".

The new figure remains the lowest since 1990, when growth plummeted to 3.9 per cent.

Global stock markets have been pummelled by concerns over slowing growth in China, a key driver of the world economy.

After decades of double-digit expansion authorities are trying to pull off a tricky rebalancing from an investment- and export-led economic model to one where domestic consumer demand drives slower but more sustainable growth.

But an official Chinese manufacturing survey last week sent world markets into a tailspin, as investors gave vent to worries China's economy is headed for a "hard landing".

Chinese growth slowed in first two quarters of this year, reaching 7.0 per cent in both periods.

Investors were also alarmed by authorities' surprise lowering of the yuan currency's central rate against the US dollar by nearly five per cent in a single week last month.