China’s accelerating economic recovery without signs yet of a surge in inflation may give the government some leeway in making two crucial decisions: raising interest rates and revaluing the Chinese currency.
But the government cautioned that risks remained, like high unemployment and booming real estate prices.
China’s gross domestic product jumped 11.9 percent in the first quarter, the government said Thursday. That growth rate, the highest in three years, not only surpassed most economists’ forecasts but it also handily beat the 10.7 percent expansion recorded for the final quarter of 2009.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics also reported that the consumer price index rose 2.4 percent in March from a year earlier and that the producer price index was up 5.2 percent. Those figures were generally in line with analysts’ expectations.