CHINA Q1 GROWTH: 9.7%

ECONOMISTS REACT: CHINA’S INFLATION, GROWTH

China RealTime Report, April 15, 2011

China’s economic growth slowed slightly in the first quarter, but inflation accelerated to a nearly three-year high in March. The country’s gross domestic product rose 9.7% from a year earlier in the first quarter, data released Friday by the National Bureau of Statistics show, down marginally from the 9.8% expansion in the fourth quarter of 2010. Meanwhile, the consumer price index rose 5.4% from a year earlier in March, up from 4.9% in February and the fastest since July 2008. Economists react:

The Chinese economy is not slowing as planned, or desired, with GDP expanding 9.7% year-on-year in the first quarter to 9.63 trillion yuan. The strong economic performance through Q1, despite the myriad tightening measures put in place over the past six months, should give policymakers confidence to more aggressively attack inflation and its root causes. Indeed, with CPI jumping to a 32-month high, it is not hard to argue for further tightening. —Alistair Thornton and Xianfang Ren, IHS Global Insight

(...) [artículo aquí]