China growth slows to 6.9% in Q2: survey

Beijing

CHINA's GDP growth likely slowed further in the second quarter, an AFP survey has found, as a slowdown in investment and trade weighed on the world's second-largest economy.

The median forecast in a poll of 14 economists indicates gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 6.9 per cent from April to June, marginally down from 7.0 per cent in the first three months of this year.

That would be the worst quarterly result since the first three months of 2009, in the depths of the global financial crisis, when China's economy expanded by 6.6 per cent.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will release the official GDP figures for the first quarter of 2015 on Wednesday.

China's volatile stock markets have grabbed headlines this month after the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell more than 30 per cent in less than four weeks, before reversing course in…