Official figures released Tuesday showed China’s economic growth decelerated to 7.4% in 2014 as the economy grew only 7.3% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported. Leaders have held off on broad stimulus, emphasizing a “new normal” of slowing growth since mid-2014. They also face more difficulties directing money to specific sectors as a credit crunch squeezes many erstwhile drivers of growth, including the property and manufacturing sectors. There, cash-flow problems have proliferated as businesses find themselves bereft of revenue streams they had come to depend on following a massive stimulus in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Chinese stocks did, however, rise on the news, after a record six-year drop on Monday.
Categories