China GDP steady in second quarter, up 6.7%

China’s economy grew at a slightly faster pace than expected in the second quarter, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The world’s second-largest economy expanded by 6.7% on the year, steady from the previous quarter and a touch ahead of economists’ expectations for a slowdown of 6.6% growth.

Compared to the first quarter, gross domestic product was up 1.8%. The Chinese government has a growth target of 6.5% to 7% for this year.

“The Chinese economy has shown signs of bottoming out,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets.

“We can thank the continuous efforts by the People’s Bank of China, which introduced various different stimulus measures to achieve that figure. The number for the second quarter was 1.8% higher as compared to the first quarter. This also confirmed that the industrial production and retails sales data have also picked up steam on a year-on-year basis during the month of June.

“China's biggest challenge was to shift its economy from manufacturing-based to consumption-based, and this raised many questions among market participants whether the country would be able to achieve this. A hard landing for the Chinese economy has been very much on the cards and investors have been questioning the slowdown. The Brexit vote may have an effect in the coming days, as we can see if there were any consequences as the export numbers took a hit.”

Also on Friday, other figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed industrial production in China rose 6.2% in June from a year earlier, up from 6.0% growth in May.

Meanwhile, fixed-asset investment rose 9% year-on-year between January and June, down from 9.6% growth in the first five months of the year.

Retail sales were up 10.6% in June compared to the year before, up from a 10% rise in May.