Tianjin's GDP grew 13.8 percent year-on-year to reach 309.4 billion yuan (US$38.7 billion) in the first three quarters, local authorities said Tuesday.

Despite the continued economic growth, the growth rate nevertheless fell by 0.6 percentage point compared with the first two quarters, said Du Wei, of the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Statistics.

The national macro-economic control policies worked in this North China's port city and also an industrial base, Du said, citing that the fixed assets investment and bank lending also slowed paces.

The fixed assets investment reached nearly 133.5 billion yuan in the first nine months, up 27.7 percent from a year earlier, but down 4.7 percentage points compared with the first half year.

Meanwhile, the outstanding loans for all the financial institutions in the city increased by 14.1 percent year-on-year to reach nearly 529 billion yuan, and the growth rate dropped by 4.1 percentage points when compared with the first two quarters.

Although some economic indices showed signs of slowdown, Tianjin's economy reported no big fluctuations and keeps steady growth, Du said.

China's economy grew by 10.4 percent in the third quarter, down 0.9 percentage points from the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said last week.

"The tendency of the economy growing a little bit too fast has been brought under check," a bureau spokesperson Li Xiaochao said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2006)