China Growth Slowed to 9.6% for First Half

China’s growth slowed to 9.5 percent in the second quarter from 9.7 percent in the first quarter to end the first half at 9.6 percent year-on-year growth, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) spokesman Sheng Laiyun Wednesday.

China’s GDP was 20.446 trillion yuan ($3.146 trillion) in the first six months amid “generally good” economic performance and had developed according to macro-economic regulation in the first half, according to Sheng.

The industrial value-added output grew 14.3 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year of 2011 while fixed asset investment rose 25.6 percent to 12.46 trillion yuan ($1.93 trillion) in the same period.

June’s fixed asset investment slipped 1.04 percent from May’s.

Investment in the property sector rose 32.9 percent year-on-year to reach 2.63 trillion yuan ($406 bil.). Residential housing accounted for 1.86 trillion yuan ($287 bil.), a 36.1 percent jump from the same period of 2010.

Retail sales rose 16.8 percent year-on-year in the first half while the consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose 5.4 percent.