China’s economic growth eased to 6.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, beating expectations but still the slowest since the global financial crisis, putting pressure on policymakers to roll out more support measures as fears of a sharper slowdown spook investors. Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted gross domestic product (GDP) for the world’s second-largest economy would come in at 6.8 percent, compared with 7 percent in the prior quarter. Quarter-on-quarter growth was 1.8 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said at a news conference on Monday. The market had expected GDP growth to come in at 1.7 percent on a quarterly basis, compared to a revised reading of 1.8 percent the prior quarter. Fixed-asset investment growth eased to 10.3 percent year-on-year in […]