CRI听力:China Growth Slows to Lowest in over Two Decades

The official growth rate for last year has come in just below the official target of 7.5 percent.

However, it's the slowest rate of growth in China since 1990 when growth that year tumbled to just 3.8 percent.

Ma Jiantang, director of the National Bureau of Statistics, admits the Chinese economy faces headwinds.

"Generally speaking, China's economy has achieved stable progress with improved quality under the 'new normal' in 2014. However, we should also be aware that the domestic and international situations are still complicated and China's economic development is still faced with difficulties and challenges."

Growth in fixed asset investment, a key growth engine, eased to just under 16-percent on an annualized basis last year.

The property market - a major driver of demand across a range of domestic industries - also saw slower growth this past year.

Investment expansion in the property sector decreased by over 9 percentage points from 2013.

The Chinese government is pinning the overall slowdown as a function of the government's attempt to transform the economy, weaning itself off overreliance on investment and trade in favor of domestic consumption.

Retail sales gained 12-percent this past year.

The service sector managed to expand its overall market share, representing some 48-percent of China's GDP.

David Dollar, an economist with Washington-based Brookings Institution, says he expects China's economy to do well this year.

"Chinese economy is basically doing quite well. The growth rate is slowing down, which is natural at this stage of development. China has built up a lot of excess capacity in different sectors, so it makes sense for the investment to slow down, bringing down the growth rate. But China's exports are holding up well. Consumption is holding up well. So the overall growth rate is a little bit above seven. And I think that's quite good. For 2015, I would expect the growth to slow a little bit more but still could be around seven percent."

Alfred Schipke, a senior IMF official in China, is recommending the Chinese government take a balanced approach to the management of the economy this year.

"The risk is that the government is faced with three tasks at the same time. On the one hand, it is trying to reduce vulnerabilities in the economy. At the same time it tries to facilitate the adjustment that is going on. But the third point is very important that it tries to avoid a too sharp slowdown. So macro policies need to carefully calibrated."

The IMF has cut its forecast for the Chinese economic growth this year to 6.8 percent.

It's widely expected Chinese policy-makers are going to set their own growth targets for this year at around 7-percent.

Steps have been taken to ensure the Chinese economy doesn't head towards a so-called hard-landing.

The People's Bank of China is thought to be looking at another interest rate cut after cutting interest rates to 2.75 percent in November, the first time the central bank has moved on interest rates since 2012.

For CRI, I'm Yin Xiuqi.