China’s economic growth rebounded to 7.8 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, after slowing to 7.5 per cent in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Friday.

The new data took the total increase of China’s estimated gross domestic product in the first nine months of the year to 7.7 per cent, putting the ruling Communist Party on track to surpass its annual growth target of 7.5 per cent.

Annual growth in the world’s second-largest economy fell to 7.7 per cent last year, the slowest since 1999, after 9.3 per cent in 2011.

Growth has fallen amid the eurozone debt crisis and uncertainty over the US economic recovery, as well as rising wages and other production costs in China.

The government is trying to promote domestic consumption and more sustainable growth as it tries to rebalance the world’s second-largest economy away from its reliance on exports and investment in infrastructure.

Retail sales rose 12.9 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of the year, the bureau said.