Growth in China is coolingâ??that in itself is no longer news. Whatâ??s made headlines recently, though, is that itâ??s decelerating much faster than anticipated. Here are some important things you need to know about the worldâ??s second-largest economy.
No. 1: The slowdown is for real
Yes, the slowdown is for real; thatâ??s caught many economists by surprise and is fanning worries that China wonâ??t be the hoped-for engine to drive a global recovery. First-quarter GDP growth of 7.7 percent was well below the 8 percent predicted by a Bloomberg survey of economists and even lower than the 7.8 percent rate for all of last year (which in turn, was Chinaâ??s slowest growth in 13 years). Already, Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have pared back their 2013 estimates to 7.8 percent.
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