Beijing: China has entered an era of medium-speed growth between seven percent and eight percent, leading analysts said Tuesday after it emerged that the world's second largest economy grew at its slowest pace since 2009 in the third quarter of 2014.
The director of the Research Center for Economy at the China Institute for Reform and Development, Kuang Xianming said that "the challenge for the Chinese economy is not about the speed, but about the structure."
"The country has entered an era of medium-speed growth between 7 percent and 8 percent. We need to grasp the good times of medium-speed growth to realise breakthroughs in key reforms," Kuang said.
The current growth rate suits China as it pushes for reforms, Kuang was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.
China's GDP grew at its slowest pace since 2009 in the third quarter of this year prompting concerns that it may miss the official target of 7.5 percent first time in 14 years.
The GDP growth in the July-September period marked the slowest quarterly growth since the first quarter of 2009 and was in line with market expectations, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data suggested.
"In general, the economy has maintained steady development momentum in the first three quarters, but the environment at home and abroad remains complex," NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a press conference, citing challenges ahead.
Calling the slower growth a "new normal" and a "hard-won result," Sheng said China will keep its macro policies stable but consider fine-tuning when appropriate to ensure steady and healthy economic growth.
He attributed the economic slowdown to short-term pains from cutting overcapacity and the downturn of the property market.
Another economist at Capital Economics, Julian Evans-Pritchard, believes that the problems in the property sector have dragged on growth, but that overall, the broader economy remains "healthy".
"We don't think policymakers will panic as a result of the slowdown given that it remains highly concentrated in a few sectors suffering from overcapacity," he was quoted by BBC as saying.
"The upshot is that although growth has slowed, it reflects a welcome rebalancing away from excess investment in certain sectors of the economy and is not cause for significant concern," he added.
Observers say that the slow growth may result in China missing the official growth target since 1999 and the government may resort to stimulus measures to revive the economy.
For the first nine months, the GDP rose 7.4 percent year on year to reach 42 trillion yuan (USD 6.84 trillion).
