Signs suggest China's economy is bottoming out  

Beijing (CNS) - - Experts agreed there are signs that China's economy is bottoming out after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released its economic data for the third quarter on Thursday.

China's economy grew 7.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2012, and the downward trend is slow-paced, the NBS data showed.

Sheng Laiyun, spokesperson for the NBS, said economic increases in eastern areas such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai Municipality have risen, which could be considered a positive sign by the macro-economy.

A mild increase is likely to appear in the fourth quarter, Sheng said, adding that he has confidence that the annual increase target can be realized.

Compared with the first half, there were improvements in the third quarter GDP, said Fan Jianping, director of the Economic Forecast Department of the State Information Center. He predicted a growth of 7.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

Qu Hongbin, HSBC's chief economist for China, said China's investment in fixed assets achieved an increase of 23 percent in September, much higher than the 19.4 percent in August.

The increase of capital investment in infrastructure to some extent counteracted the impact of the declining investment in property, Qu added. The trend is expected to continue in the fourth quarter and bring the GDP to nearly 8 percent, he said.