Dragon dying? Massive slowdown! China's economic growth rate slowest since 1990
The uncertain outlook for Chinese exporters caused companies to delay investing and hiring and in some cases even to resort to layoffs - a practice that is often discouraged by China's stability-obsessed Communist Party rulers. The official jobless rate ticked up to 4.9 per cent last month from 4.8 per cent in November.
The country's economy grew 6.4 per cent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, levels last seen in early 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis. Reuters