China's gross domestic product (GDP) indicated a year-on-year increase of 7.7 percent to RMB 11.8855 trillion ($1.9 trillion) in the first quarter of this year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The 7.7 percent growth rate indicates a slowdown compared to the 7.9 percent year-on-year expansion recorded in the fourth quarter last year. In the first quarter of this year, China's GDP grew 1.6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2012.
The total industrial value-added output of China's large and medium-sized enterprises was up 9.5 percent year on year in the first quarter of the current year, indicating a 2.1 percentage point decrease compared to the year-on-year growth rate registered in the same period last year.
In the January-March period of this year, China's total fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) amounted to RMB 5.8092 trillion ($929 billion), up 20.9 percent year on year, with the year-on-year growth rate in question unchanged compared to the same period of last year, while it was up 0.3 percentage points compared with the growth rate recorded for the whole of 2012.
Meanwhile, in the first quarter this year fixed asset investment in China's industrial sector was RMB 2.4254 trillion ($388 billion), up 17.4 percent year on year. In particular, fixed asset investment in China's mining sector in the given period was RMB 133.8 billion ($21.4 billion), up 2.7 percent year on year, while fixed asset investment in China's manufacturing sector totaled RMB 2.0473 trillion ($328 billion), up 18.7 percent year on year.