China’s economic growth slows to 6.9%

China’s National Bureau on Statistics announced on Monday that the economy of China has surged by 6,9% year-on-year through September, that is, better than the official 6,8% forecast, but below the 7% overall expectation for 2015.

However, growth was above median projections from economists and still in line with Beijing’s “around 7 percent” annual target.

“Quite frankly we don’t believe them”, said Danny Gabay, Director of Fathom financial consulting, who considers these figures are “suspiciously close to the target, produced remarkably quickly and rarely revised”.

He added: ‘While the official GDP figures continue to overstate the actual pace of growth in China by a significant margin, underlying conditions are subdued but stable’. “China is growing at a much slower pace than Beijing reports”.

The same poll predicted economic growth may hold steady at 6.8 per cent in the fourth quarter before easing to 6.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2016. But GDP is what markets use to measure a country’s growth.

China’s exports growth dropped 7.9 percent year on year in the first three quarters to 17.87 trillion yuan, according to the NBS. “The government’s measures helped dampen the negative pressures but the situation is these pressures on increase are really quite serious”, Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics told.

In its battle against the worst cooldown in more than six years, the PBOC has cut interest rates five times since November and the reserve requirement ratio three times this year.

The World Bank recently cut its growth forecasts for China with expansion slowing to 6.3% next year and 6% in 2017.

Chinese leaders have been trying to reassure markets for months that the economy is under control after the summer’s shock devaluation and stock market plunge.

Between July and September, China’s economy grew 6.9% compared to one year ago. Economists are, nevertheless, continuing to call for more government activity, as volatility in the stock markets triggers issues of possible societal unrest and fiscal chaos.

Fixed-asset investment growth eased to 10.3% year-on-year in the first nine months of the year, also missing market expectations.