BEIJING, Jan 20 (Reuters) – China’s economic growth held steady at 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, slightly better than expected but still hovering at its weakest since the global financial crisis, keeping pressure on policymakers to head off a sharper slowdown.
The world’s second-largest economy grew 7.4 percent in the whole of 2014, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, undershooting the government’s 7.5 percent target and marking the weakest expansion in 24 years, further clouding the picture for global demand.
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With the property market likely to remain under pressure and investment sluggish, many market watchers expect Beijing to cut its growth target for 2015 to around 7 percent. (Reporting by Kevin Yao; Writing by Pete Sweeney; Editing by Kim Coghill)
