Is China’s growth too steady to be true?
The world’s second largest economy has now posted exactly the same pace of growth for three quarters in a row. Analysts warn that such consistency isn’t sustainable and fails to give a full picture of what’s really going on.
China has gotten a lift this year from a red hot real estate market and government backed spending and lending. Its economy expanded 6.7% in the third quarter, according to official data released Wednesday, right in line with the previous two quarters and economists’ forecasts.
“The official GDP figures remain too stable to tell us much about the performance of China’s economy,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, a China expert at Capital Economics. “Our own measure of economic activity suggests that growth actually picked up last quarter, though the improvement clearly won’t last.”
Source: CNN (19 October 2016)