China holds steady 6.8 percent economic growth despite trade tensions

New Delhi : China, a populous nation in East Asia is holding its economic growth steadily till March end. Sustained by investment, the country’s rapid growth in e-commerce in the midst of rising trade tensions with Washington is really worth-appreciating. The world’s second-largest economy expanded by 6.8 percent over a year earlier, in line with the quarter ending in December and down slightly from 2017’s full-year expansion of 6.9 percent, data showed Tuesday. It was seemingly above the official 2018 target of “around 6.5 percent.

Business forecasters believe that the growth will be remarkable as Beijing tries to restraint in rising debt by tightening controls to maintain a bang in real estate sales and bank lending.

The ruling Communist Party is in the middle of a lengthy effort to push the country to slower, more sustainable growth based on domestic expenditure and minimum dependence on trade and investment. A possible alarming risk is President Donald Trump’s threat to raise duties on up to $150 billion of Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijing’s technology policy. Beijing has issued its own list of U.S. goods for possible retaliation.

China’s trade balance move back and forth to a rare shortage in March as exports contracted 2.7%. The country relies less on trade than it did a decade ago but export industries still supports millions of jobs in the country. In a efforts to encourage consumer spending, retail sales rose 9.8 percent, up from December’s 9.4 percent growth, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

E-commerce sales surged 35.4 percent, up 3.3 percent from the previous quarter. Investment in factories, real estate and other fixed assets elevated at 7.5%, up from last year’s 7.2 percent growth. Factory output rose at 6.8 percent over a year earlier.