BEIJING: China's economy expanded 7.0 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, official data showed Wednesday, slumping to a new post global financial crisis low even as authorities take steps to bolster growth in the world's second-largest economy.
The figure announced by the National Bureau of Statistics was lower than expansion of 7.3 percent in the final three months of last year, but exceeded the median forecast of 6.9 percent in an AFP survey of 15 economists.
The result remained the worst for a single quarter since the first three months of 2009, when GDP increased 6.6 percent in the depths of the global financial crisis.
China's economy last year grew 7.4 percent, down from 7.7 percent in 2013, and its slowest annual expansion since 3.8 percent in 1990.
"Despite the slowing down of economic growth, employment, consumer price and market expectation remained stable," the NBS said in a statement.
It said that "positive factors were accumulating" and priority should be put on "stabilising economic growth, ensuring employment, and improving efficiency".
China's leadership appears comfortable with weaker growth, a development top officials say heralds a "new normal" of more stable, consumer-driven expansion in line with China's increasingly mature economy.
Still, Communist authorities want to avoid too fast a deceleration that could hurt job growth -- a key component of social stability in the world's most populous nation -- and have been taking monetary steps to bolster growth.
Nomura economists said the figures meant authorities were likely to take further stimulatory measures to underpin the economy.
"The weaker Q1 GDP growth and much weaker than expected March activity data suggest that growth momentum remains weak, which calls for further policy easing," Nomura economists wrote in a reaction.
The NBS announced that China's industrial output, which measures production at factories, workshops and mines, rose 5.6 percent year-on-year in March.
That was below a median forecast of 7.0 percent growth in a Bloomberg News survey of economists and marked the lowest reading since November of 2008.
Retail sales, a key indicator of consumer spending, gained 10.2 percent in March from the year before, the NBS said, below the median 10.9 percent Bloomberg forecast.
And fixed asset investment, a measure of government spending on infrastructure, grew 13.5 percent in January-March on-year, the NBS added, also below a median 13.9 percent in the Bloomberg survey.
Earlier this year the central People's Bank of China (PBoC) cut benchmark interest rates for the second time in three months, loosening bank reserve requirement ratios to spur lending and taking steps to boost the slumping property market.
Economists broadly expect more such moves as authorities seek to keep growth within striking distance of their "about 7.0 percent" target for 2015.
Most recently, the PBoC last month lowered minimum downpayment levels on second homes nationwide and shortened the ownership period during which sellers are liable for a 20-percent capital gains tax on properties other than their main home.
A survey showed that declines in Chinese new house prices decelerated in March from the previous month, but they have fallen in 10 of the past 11 months.
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