China's GDP Growth Accelerated to 9.9% in 4th Quarter (Update2)
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- China's economic growth accelerated to 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter as factories produced more cars, computers and clothing to meet rising consumer demand and surging overseas orders.
The economy grew a revised 9.6 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement in Beijing. For the full year, gross domestic product rose 9.1 percent -- its biggest percentage gain in six years -- to 11.7 trillion yuan ($1.41 trillion), it said.
China's economic growth gathered pace last year even as the region's severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak cooled consumer spending, tourism and trade in the second and third quarters. Electricity blackouts too failed to curb expansion in the world's sixth-largest economy.
``We had a successful 2003 and sold a record 597,000 cars after overcoming SARS, heat and capacity and power shortages,'' said Xiao Guopu, vice president at Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., China's No. 2 vehicle maker. The company makes cars in partnership with General Motors Corp. and Volkswagen AG.
China used a new system of measuring economic activity that takes greater account of the construction industry, black market and other areas after economists cast doubt on the accuracy of the previous method. The economy was previously reported to have expanded 9.1 percent in the third quarter and 8 percent in 2002.
Fixed-asset investment, which accounts for about a third of China's economy, grew 35 percent last year, Xie Xuren, commissioner of the State Administration of Taxation, said last week.
Retail sales rose about a 10th for a fifth straight month in November and overseas sales in December grew 51 percent -- their fastest pace in more than eight years -- to a record $48 billion.
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