From AFP:
China’s economy slowed dramatically at the end of 2008 as the full force of the global crisis hit home, dragging growth to a seven-year low, official data showed Thursday.
The world’s third-largest economy expanded by just 6.8 percent in the final quarter, pulling the full-year growth figure down to 9.0 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
Coming after 13.0 percent growth in 2007, the figures offered the most complete picture yet of just how severely the world crisis has hit China’s export-dependent economy.
“The international financial crisis is deepening and spreading with a continuing negative impact on the domestic economy,” Ma Jiantang, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, told reporters in Beijing.
