China released a range of first-quarter economic data on Thursday that showed economic growth at a 10-year low but also provided evidence of possible turnaround sparked by the 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) stimulus package drafted last year.

Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 6.1 percent year on year in the first quarter, official data showed Thursday.

The quarterly growth rate was the lowest in 10 years, as the global downturn held back the world's fastest-growing economy. The rate was 4.5 percentage points lower than the first quarter of 2008 and 0.7 percentage point lower than in the fourth quarter.

GDP reached 6.5745 trillion yuan in the first quarter, Li Xiaochao, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), told a press conference.

Positive signs

Li said the government's stimulus measures had produced positive results and the first-quarter performance was better than expected.

First-quarter industrial output grew 5.1 percent year on year with a rise of 8.3 percent in March alone. Fixed-asset investment rose 28.8 percent in nominal terms to 2.81 trillion yuan. In real terms, fixed-asset investment rose more than 30 percent.

In the first two months alone, investment in new projects rose 87.5 percent from a year earlier, with railway spending alone more than doubling. Rail projects comprise the single biggest component of stimulus spending.

Agriculture production was forecast to continue increasing for a sixth year, with the area of grain crops to reach 1.08 trillion hectares, the NBS said. No percentage change for this figure was provided.

First-quarter retail sales grew 15 percent to 2.94 trillion yuan.

The per capita quarterly disposable income of urban residents rose 10.2 percent in nominal terms to 4,834 yuan for the first quarter, while that of rural residents climbed a nominal 8.6 percent to 1,622 yuan, the NBS said.

The NBS figures follow other positive economic signs. Sales of vehicles and home appliances, for example, rose in the first quarter. According to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, vehicle sales hit 2.68 million units in the first quarter, the highest in the world.

Sales of home appliances in March were up 72 percent from February to 2.24 billion yuan, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Other signs show weakness

But other economic indicators showed declines. The consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, fell 1.2 percent year on year in March, compared with a decline of 1.6 percent in February, the first monthly fall since December 2002. And the producer price index, a measure of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 6 percent in March.