Firms feel chill amid China’s slowdown

China’s economy is officially growing at a brisk clip of 7%, but many locally based executives at multinationals say they wouldn’t know it from the performance of their businesses.

By China’s standards 7% is already the weakest annual growth in 25 years, but on the ground the slowdown in the world’s second-biggest economy is being felt more acutely in many sectors, even those driven by consumer spending, which government data says is growing around 10%.

“How can China’s economy be growing at 7%?” said an executive at a Western conglomerate that does business with a wide range of Chinese and foreign firms in China.