(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-16 14:58

China's economic growth slowed down slightly to 10.6 percent in the first quarter, compared with 11.7 percent in the same period of last year, the government said Wednesday.

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China maintained steady and fast growth since the beginning of the year, despite the unprecedented freak winter weather and the widespread subprime mortgage crisis, the National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Li Xiaochao said at a press conference Wednesday in Beijing.

The world's fourth-largest economy expanded at a blistering 11.9-percent pace for all of 2007, the fifth consecutive year its annual economic growth exceeded 10 percent.

Industrial production rose 16.4 percent year-on-year in the first three months. The increase was 1.9 percentage points lower than that in the same period of 2007.

China's consumer price index (CPI), a measure of inflation, was up 8.3 percent in March of this year, as against the 8.7 percent level for the previous month.

Li said the country's CPI for the first quarter of this year was 8 percent.

In the January-March period, the inflation indicator rose 7.8 percent for urban areas, and up 8.7 percent for rural areas.

In breakdowns, food prices soared 21.0 percent, driving CPI up by 6.8 percentage points. Housing prices and rents went up 6.6 percent on average, dring the inflation gauge by one percentage point.

The first quarter also saw retail prices up 7.4 percent, 5.3 percentage points higher than the year-earlier level, and producer price index, or PPI, up 6.9 percent, 4.0 percentage points higher.

Prices of raw materials, fuels and power supply increased 9.8 percent in the first three months of this year, 5.7 percentage points higher than the level for the same period of last year. Meanwhile, housing prices in 70 major cities rose 11.0 percent on average, 5.4 percentage points higher.

Retail sales of consumer goods in the first quarter rose 20.6 percent year on year to 2,555.5 billion yuan (US$365 billion), Li said. The growth was 5.7 percentage points higher than that in the same 2007 period.

Industrial production rose 16.4 percent year-on-year in the first three months. The increase was 1.9 percentage points lower than that in the same period of 2007.

Fixed asset investment reached 2.18 trillion yuan ($311 billion), up 24.6 percent, which was 0.9 percentage points higher than a year ago.