Q1 GDP growth slows to 8.1%

China's economy expanded 8.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, slowing from 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

The quarterly growth was the slowest in 11 quarters and undershoot market expectation of 8.3 to 8.5 percent. [Full story]

CPI growth rebounds to 3.6%

China's inflation rebounded slightly in March after logging a relatively low growth in February, but analysts generally believe prices will drift lower in the following months despite lingering uncertainties.

China's consumer price index (CPI) expanded 3.6 percent year-on-year in March, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

The growth represents a climb from the 3.2-percent rate registered in February, the lowest pace in 20 months. [Full story]

PPI down 0.3%

China's Producer Price Index (PPI), a main gauge of inflation at wholesale level, fell 0.3 percent in March from a year earlier, according to figures released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

It is the first time the PPI has seen negative year-on-year growth since December 2009.

But the PPI grew 0.3 percent month-on-month in March, marking four consecutive months of gain, the NBS said in a statement on its website. [Full story]

Steady economic expansion

China's manufacturing activities rebounded to a year high in March, signaling a steady economic expansion aided by warming market demand, according to the official Purchasing Managers' Index.

However, the sudden rise in March didn't erase economists' worries about the economy, as they believe there is still space for easing monetary policy to support industrial businesses depending on the situation. [Full story]

China swings back to trade surplus

China swung back to trade surplus in March from February's deficit of $31.48 billion, posting a 670-million-dollar trade surplus in the first quarter.

The country's foreign trade in March rose 7.1 percent year-on-year to reach $325.97 billion, with a trade surplus of $5.35 billion.

Exports amounted to $165.66 billion in March, up 8.9 percent year-on-year, while imports reached $160.31 billion , the GAC data showed. [Full story]

Industrial value-added output up 11.6% in Q1

China's industrial value-added output grew 11.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

In March alone, the industrial value-added output was up 11.9 percent from a year earlier. [Full story]

Q1 fixed-asset investment up 20.9%

China's urban fixed asset investment rose 20.9 percent year-on-year to 4.7865 trillion yuan ($759.8billion) in the first quarter of 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The growth rate was down 2.9 percentage points from the figure registered for the whole year of 2011, the NBS said. [Full story]

China's retail sales grew 14.8 percent year-on-year to 4.9319 trillion yuan ($783.03 billion) in the first quarter of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

After adjusting for inflation, the real growth rate came in at 10.9 percent, the NBS said. [Full story]

Fiscal revenue up 14.7% in Q1

China's fiscal revenue in the first quarter of the year rose 14.7 percent from the same period a year ago to near 3 trillion yuan ($476.05 billion), the Ministry of Finance said.

The growth, though slightly higher than the 13.1-percent rise in the January-February period, contrasts a 33.1-percent jump in the same period last year. [Full story]

New yuan lending surges

China's new yuan loans trumped forecasts to soar to a 14-month high of 1.01 trillion yuan ($160.18 billion) in March, as the government shifted more focus to sustaining growth in the world's second-largest economy.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, grew 13.4 percent year-on-year to hit 89.56 trillion yuan at the end of March. [Full story]

FDI continues falling in March

Foreign direct investment flowing into China fell for a fifth straight month in March as companies curbed investment amid a global economic slowdown.

The FDI dropped 6.1 percent year on year to $11.76 billion in March, following a 0.9-percent decline in February and a 0.3-percent fall in January, the Ministry of Commerce announced. [Full story]

Shoppers feel price pinch

Rising prices hit low-income families the hardest as food costs surge 7.5%. Shoppers in Shanghai are feeling the heat from rising prices, particularly those on lower incomes.

In E-Mart, a supermarket in central Shanghai, many shoppers were seeking out cheaper cooking oil on Monday morning, after television reports on Sunday night forecast it would go up in price.

Shen Amei, 76, who cooks for a family of five, chose a 5-liter bottle of sunflower oil costing 55.9 yuan ($8.9). [Full story]

Firm stance on house prices

Local developers and government measures should enable affordable housing instead of re-inflating the bubble

Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities have witnessed robust rebounds in house sales despite Premier Wen Jiabao's harsher-than-ever remarks that China's house prices are still far from a reasonable level.

In the first 10 days of March, the sales area of newly built commercial houses in Shanghai reached 417,000 square meters, an increase of 165.6 percent on the same period in February. There was also an increase in the sales of secondhand homes. [Full story]

Tight lid on property prices

Easing the housing bubble will benefit economy and millions of ordinary people across the country rather than speculators

The recent reiteration by the top authorities that they will press ahead with the tightened real estate regulatory policies has disheartened developers who wanted the tight lid on the domestic housing market to be lifted amid signs of an economic slowdown. [Full story]