DHAKA: China’s GDP growth slowed to 7.4 per cent in 2014, official data showed Tuesday, the lowest since 1990, as authorities in the world’s second-largest economy talk of a ‘new normal’ of slowing expansion.

The 2014 figure announced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was below growth of 7.7 percent in 2013, but exceeded the median forecast of 7.3 percent in a media survey of 15 economists, reports The Straits Times.

China’s Q4 economic growth also beat economists’ estimates, helping the full-year expansion remain close to the government's target of ‘about’ 7.5 percent.

GDP expanded 7.3 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of last year, the NBS said, matching the 7.3 percent result in the third quarter and beating the 7.2 percent median forecast in the survey.

Still, the 2014 result is the first miss since 1998 during the Asian economic crisis.

‘China’s economy has achieved stable progress with improved quality under the new normal in 2014,’ the NBS said in a statement.

‘However we should also be aware that the domestic and international situations are still complicated and economic development is facing difficulties and challenges.’

The full-year result was the worst since the 3.8 percent recorded in 1990 and comes as one of the pillars of the global economy was hit last year by troubles including manufacturing and trade weakness as well as declining prices for real estate, which has sent a shock through the country’s key property sector.

The NBS also said that industrial production rose 7.9 percent in December from a year earlier, compared with the 7.4 percent median estimate of analysts and November’s originally reported 7.2 percent. Retail sales, a key indicator of consumer spending, increased 11.9 percent from a year earlier, compared with the 11.7 percent seen by economists.

Policymakers showed increasing signs of discomfort in the second half of the year as economic indicators began to consistently surprise on the down side, culminating in an unexpected cut to guidance lending rates by the central bank in November.

BDST: 1114 HRS, JAN 20, 2015