Beijing, July 18: China's gross domestic product grew 6.7 per cent in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier as SARS had a sharp but transient impact on the world's sixth-biggest economy. "In the second half of the year, as SARS comes under further control and various policies are implemented, some hard hit sectors will gradually recover, and the economy and social development are expected to maintain sound momentum," State Statistical Bureau spokesman Yao Jingyuan said in a statement on Thursday.

Retail sales, which bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak in April and May, rose just 6.7 per cent in the second quarter and logged in at eight per cent in the first half, the bureau said.
But fixed asset investment, a gauge of government spending on things like roads, power plants and irrigation, rose 31.1 per cent year on year in the first half, the bureau said.

The consumer price index, which tracks a basket of goods and services from grain to health care, rose 0.6 per cent in the first half, the bureau said.
Despite SARS, China would meet 2003 growth targets, Yao said. Bureau Report