Business Briefs

China’s economic growth decelerated to 6.9 percent in 2015, down from 7.3 percent in 2014, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The GDP grew 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 6.9 percent in the third and 7 percent in the first two quarters. Though marking a 25-year low, the growth rate, however, was still within a reasonable range, having achieved the government’s annual target of around 7 percent, economists said.

The service industry, for the first time in history, contributed more than half of total GDP growth, 50.5 percent, suggesting a deeper restructuring of the growth pattern, according to the NBS. Export and industry are no longer the main engines driving the nation’s growth. Instead government-led investment in public infrastructure, manufacturing of higher value-added electronic items and e-commerce are the new leaders of the economy. The manufacturing industry accounted for 40.5 percent of GDP growth while 9 percent came from the agricultural industry.

In addition, NBS also announced that the industrial output growth retreated to 6.1 percent last year from 8.3 percent in 2014. Despite the growth slowdown, the increase in the employed population and per-capita income remained stable. In 2015, 6.8 million new jobs were created in the country. The per-capita income increased by 8.9 percent nominally to 21,966 yuan ($3,341).