China's economy registered a 7.9-per cent growth in the fourth quarter of last year from a year earlier, rebounding after seven straight quarters of slowdown, however, Beijing would need a measure of flexibility in its policy stance to support growth amid an uncertain global outlook.

The fourth-quarter uptick from 7.4 per cent in the third quarter, the lowest since the depths of the global financial crisis, saw growth in the full-year at 7.8 per cent, making 2012 the weakest year of economic expansion since 1999.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the figures were slightly stronger than market expectations in the consensus Reuters poll, which had pegged fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 7.8 per cent and put the full year at 7.7 per cent.

According to Ken Peng, an economist at BNP Paribas in Beijing, momentum at the end of the year was fairly strong but it was not really an astonishing rebound.

For the first half of this year the economy would continue to be fairly solid, though China's trend growth was still set to slow down.

On a quarterly, seasonally adjusted basis, the economy grew by 2.0 per cent as against 2.3 per cent seen in the Reuters poll.

Other data released along with GDP showed industrial output was up 10.3 per cent in December from a year ago, as against expectations of 10.1 per cent.

The data comes even as the newly elected leaders of China get ready to take charge of the country in the coming months.

BBC quoted Fraser Howie, co-author, Red Capitalism, "Once again the numbers coming out of China have surprised on the upside". He added, it was obvious that the slowdown in the Chinese economy had halted for the moment.

But one had to be mindful that any recovery would be limited in its scope, not least due to various headwinds that the country was facing.

He added at the first instance economic conditions in some of China's biggest export markets such as the US, eurozone and Japan continue to remain fragile.

The eurozone was still struggling to come out of its debt crisis, and the US recovery was still under pressure with the political tensions between the countries have not helped the cause of China either.

It also faced challenges on the domestic front where property prices had started rising again.

This has been a big area of concern in the past and the government has previously introduced measures to cool the market.
 
Those measures were partly responsible for economic slowdown in China in recent months, as the property and construction sectors remained key contributors to China's growth.

The new leaders, who take charge in March, would now have to strike the right balance between trying to prevent the formation of a property bubble and keeping a healthy growth rate going.