The figure is below the widely forecast 8%, and calls into question whether the country’s recovery is as strong as anticipated.
Growth of industrial production and retail sales also fell year-on-year, from 10% to 9.5% and from 14.3% to 12.4% respectively.
There was a surge in Chinese credit issuance during the quarter, which may help stoke further growth in the second half of the year, although it brings with it worries that already growing inflation could swell further.
Speaking before the release of the figures, Prime Minister Li Keqiang said that uncertainties at home and abroad made the overall situation complicated, but that the economy had a smooth start to the year.
The news comes in the week following the World Bank’s downgrade of the China growth forecast for 2013 by 0.1 percentage points to 8.3% as a result of the cut to the global trade outlook from the World Trade Organization.
The other big three
Growth in two of the other key emerging markets, Russia and India, also slowed in the first quarter of the year.
Russia’s GDP grew by 2.1% in Q1 2013, a fall of 0.9 percentage points from Q4 when it reached 3%. However it was anticipated that GDP growth would slow year-on-year in 2013, due in large part to a decelerating economy and its dependence on oil sales, which remained high in 2012, as key contributors to GDP.
In India, meanwhile, growth reached 4.5%, a fall from the 5.3% achieved in the last quarter of 2012. India’s growth is widely touted to remain subdued throughout 2013 as a result of declining demand for Indian products and services abroad, and higher than comfortable inflation.
Conversely, GDP in Brazil grew 1.4%, an increase on the 0.9% reported in Q4 2012. Following two years of slowing growth in the second largest emerging economy, growth is forecast to pick up in 2013 as a result of increased investment ahead of the 2014 World Cup.
A report released earlier in the year suggested that Brazil, Russia, India and China would face difficulties in 2013, making room for other emerging economies to move into the limelight.
