STEVE INSKEEP, host: NPR's business news starts with China's slowing economic growth.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: The Chinese government announced today that its economy grew at only a rate of 9.6 percent in the last quarter. You might ask, is that slow? Well, yeah. In the previous two quarters, growth was over 10 percent. Beijing is trying to engineer a slowdown to tame inflation, which recently hit a two-year high.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: As part of that campaign, earlier this week China's Central Bank raised interest rates for the first time in nearly three years.
The Chinese government has announced its economy grew 9.6 percent last quarter. Beijing is trying to engineer a slowdown to tame inflation which recently hit a two-year high.