Chinese GDP growth slowed to 7.3% pace in third quarter, ahead of forecasts

China's gross domestic product (GDP) slowed to a 7.3% year-on-year pace of growth in the third quarter, but that constitutes welcome progress towards a further re-balancing of the economy, economists said.

The consensus estimate had in fact been for a slightly more pronounced slowdown, to a 7.2% rate of expansion from the 7.5% clip seen in the third quarter.

A detailed breakdown of activity by sectors will not be published until Wednesday, but economists seem confident that the data will show weakness being focalised in just a few sectors - property to name but one.

Indeed, at an 8% year-on-year pace of growth the tally for industrial production in the month of September marked a notable pick-up from the 6.9% clip seen in August (consensus: 7.5%), when readings were depressed by anomalous factors.

Pressures on the economy however do remain. year-to-date fixed asset investment cooled to a 16.1% pace in September (consensus: 16.3%), from 16.5% in August.

Even so, "the upshot is that although growth has slowed, it reflects a welcome re-balancing away from excess investment in certain sectors of the economy and is not cause for significant concern," wrote Julian Evans Pritchard at Capital Economics.