Turns out China's economy is doing better than expected.

Hello, and thank you for tuning in to the Marketplace Morning Report and we're coming to you live

from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne.

It seems like every time we do a story on China's economy,

there's never really anything good to say, but today we've got some positive numbers.

Its economy actually grew by 5.3% in the first quarter of the year when you compare it to the same time last year.

And that GDP figure beat expectations.

Let's ask the BBC's Jowd Silva to explain.

Hello.

Hello.

GDP, a lot better than expected. What's behind it? This is Hello. is on track to meet the government's target of 5% growth this year.

A goal that, by the way, observers and even officials themselves admitted will not be easy to achieve.

But Beijing has unveiled some fiscal and monetary measures to try and

set the country back on the recovery track. It's again focusing on infrastructure spending

as well as high-tech manufacturing and this GDP growth figure

of 5.3% seems to hint that the strategy is paying off.

And does it show in any way that China's economy is doing better because I know the property

sector isn't doing very well, but are there other parts of the economy that are improving?

Actually, you know, other data released today is a bit of a mixed bag I mean retail sales growth

which is of course a gauge of consumer sentiment in China actually fell to 3.1%

industrial output was also disappointing so factories not doing so well either.

And more importantly, property investment has continued to fall along with home prices, which fell

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