China's annual growth bounded ahead to 11.3 per cent in the second quarter of this year, beating forecasts and heightening expectations of further tightening steps to restrain an economy gorging on plentiful cheap money.
The second-quarter clip appeared to be the fastest since the mid-1990s. China, now the world's fourth-largest economy, grew 10.9 percent in all of 1995 and 13.1 per cent in 1994.
National Bureau of Statistics' quarterly gross domestic product growth figures go back only as far as 2003.
Growth from 2003-2005 averaged 10 per cent a year. Analysts said the economy had built up such a head of steam that, barring a dramatic policy tightening that would be out of character for China's cautious planners, growth was unlikely to slow much in the rest of the year.
The central bank has already ordered banks to curtail lending to certain hot sectors and required them to hold more deposits in reserves instead of lending them out.
Beijing has also cracked down on speculative property investment.
Zheng Jingping, the statistics office's spokesman, told a news conference time was needed to assess the impact of other curbs but analysts said further steps were on the cards.
"It looks like a rate hike is now certain and the question is by how much rates will rise ... A move should come very soon," said Dong Tao, chief Asia economist at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong.
The second quarter's annual expansion rate was up from 10.3 per cent in the first quarter. It surpassed not only market forecasts of 10.5 per cent but also the figure of 10.9 per cent leaked last week to a state-run newspaper.
The economy was strong across the board. Industrial output in June was 19.5 per cent higher than a year earlier and retail sales were up 13.9 per cent.
In the first six months, investment in fixed assets such as factories and flats was up 29.8 per cent from a year earlier.
The investment frenzy is being fuelled in part by the proceeds of China's trade surplus, which hit a record $14.5 billion in June.
Gao at Everbright urged Beijing to consider a 5 per cent revaluation of the yuan to help dam the torrents of cash flowing into China by making exports more expensive and imports cheaper.
China has let the yuan rise just 1.4 per cent since revaluing the currency 2.1 per cent a year ago and untethering it from a decade-old dollar peg to float within managed bands.
The statistics office's Zheng acknowledged that investment and credit growth were excessive but he ruled out another one-off revaluation and warned speculators not to pile into the yuan.