China´s economic growth continued to decelerate in the third quarter as the government weans the economy from the stimulus and back to normal. But rising inflation posed new challenges.

The gross domestic product (GDP) grew 9.6 percent in the third quarter from the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Oct.21. The growth rate slowed down from 11.9 percent in the first quarter and10.3 percent in the second quarter.

From January to September, GDP increased by 10.6 percent year on year to 26.866 trillion yuan (about 4.028 trillion U.S. dollars), the NBS said. In September, the consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 3.6 percent year on year, a 23-month high. It was also the third consecutive monthly rise. On Oct. 19, China´s central bank surprisingly announced it would raise the one-year deposit and lending rates by 25 basis points to tame rising inflation amid ultra-high fixed-asset prices.

Climbing international commodity prices and the loose monetary policies of a number of countries posed challenges for the Chinese government in keeping inflation around the annual three percent target.

Industrial value-added output year-on-year growth slowed to 13.3 percent in September from 13.9 percent in August, as a result of a higher comparison basis, and high energy-consuming manufacturers´ production scaled down. In the first nine months, fixed asset investment rose 24 percent year-on-year, retail sales increased 18.3 percent.