China logs its weakest expansion for six years

China’s economic growth dipped below 7% for the first time since the global financial crisis, figures showed yesterday, hurt partly by cooling investment, raising pressure on Beijing to further cut interest rates and take other measures to stoke activity.

The world’s second-largest economy grew 6.9% between July and September from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said, slightly better than forecasts of a 6.8% rise but down from 7% in the previous three months.

That hardened expectations that China would avoid an abrupt fall-off in growth, with analysts predicting a more gradual slide in activity stretching into 2016.