CHINA’S economy expanded a seasonally adjusted 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2016 from the fourth quarter of last year, National Bureau of Statistics data showed, the lowest quarterly expansion on record since 2010.

    The slower-than-expected quarterly growth rate comes amid other signs the Chinese economy is stabilizing in the first quarter, including positive surprises from trade, inflation, output and credit.

    Analysts had expected quarterly growth of 1.5 percent for the first quarter, but the statistics bureau did not release quarterly figures when it issued annual figures Friday.

    “The 1.1 percent growth rate clearly illustrates that China’s economy still faces downward pressures,” Zhou Hao, senior economist at Commerzbank, noted yesterday. “If we calculate the seasonally adjusted GDP growth based on the qoq numbers, we find that there is a big gap (0.4 percent point) between headline GDP growth (non-seasonally adjusted) and the seasonally adjusted GDP growth. (SD-Agencies)