China on Monday trimmed its growth estimate for 2014 to 7.3 per cent from 7.4 per cent, already the weakest in 25 years, in a move set to spark concerns about the health of the world's second-largest economy days after fears of a slowdown triggered global stockmarket panic.
The revised GDP for 2014 based on preliminary verification came in at 63.61 trillion yuan ($10 trillion), down 32.4 billion yuan ($5 billion) from the preliminary calculation that put the annual rate at 7.4 per cent, NBS said. Primary industries accounted for 9.2 per cent of the GDP structure, unchanged from the preliminary calculation.
The secondary sector accounted for 42.7 per cent of GDP, up 0.1 percentage points from the preliminary calculation, while the tertiary sector accounted for 48.1 per cent, down 0.1 percentage point from the earlier statistics, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The NBS calculates each year's GDP 3 times the preliminary calculation, followed by the preliminary verification and then the final verification, which is released several months later.
China's economy is headed for its slowest economic expansion in 25 years in 2015. The new number remains the lowest since 1990, when expansion plummeted to 3.9 per cent. The revised data came at a time when investors have become increasingly doubtful of the depth of the economic slowdown in China.