China has unexpectedly cut a key interest rate for the first time in almost two years as official figures showed its economic growth had slowed.
Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4% for the last three months of 2021 from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
That was better than most economists had predicted but was a lot slower than the previous quarter. In another sign of weakness retail sales growth for December fell to 1.7%.
For the year as a whole, official data showed that China’s economy grew by 8.1%, which beat economists’ forecasts and came in well above Beijing’s annual target of “over 6%.”
However, some economists highlighted that the growth data, which was the slowest in a year and a half, has yet to take into account the effect of the latest coronavirus outbreaks.
“The GDP figure didn’t reflect the impact of domestic spread of the omicron variant since late December which will hit the service industry significantly, especially offline consumption and transportation, Yue Su from the Economist Intelligence Unit said.
Another PBOC lending measure, the seven-day reverse repurchase rate, was also cut, while the bank pumped another 200bn yuan of medium-term cash into the financial system. The moves put China further apart from other major central banks around the world.
The US Federal Reserve has signalled that it plans to increase its interest rate three times this year.
While in the UK, the Bank of England raised interest rate last month for the first time in more than three years, in response to calls to tackle surging price rises.
