China's latest GDP growth figures in line with expectations

China's National Bureau of Statistics reports GDP growth last year being 6.9 %; 6.9 % in the first two quarters of 2017, and 6.8 % in the last two. GDP grew by 11.3 % in nominal terms to 82.712 trillion yuan (12.2 trillion dollars).

Many economists do not take China's official GDP growth figures at face value due to their uncanny consistency and failure to reflect business cycles, especially when other key indicators exhibit large movements. One of the most striking aspects is that significant slowdown in fixed asset investment (FAI) does not seem to have affected the GDP growth rate although investment is a major part of the aggregate demand.

Performance indicators for China's real economy

Sources: CEIC, Macrobond, BOFIT.