China's GDP growth slowed to 9.1 percent in the third quarter of this year, down from the 9.5 percent in the second quarter and the 9.7 percent in the first, the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Tuesday, Xinhua reported.

The growth rate was slightly below a previous Dow Jone's forecast of 9.2 percent by 14 economists.

The country's economy expanded 2.3 percent in the July-September period on a quarterly basis, NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a press conference. In the first three quarters, China's economy grew by 9.4 percent from a year earlier.

According to preliminary statistics, the country's GDP reached 32.07 trillion yuan (5.01 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months, up 9.4 percent year-on-year, Sheng said.

Sheng?said China's economic performance was "generally good" and had developed according to the macro-economic regulation in the first nine months.

The country's fixed asset investment rose 24.9 percent year-on-year to 21.23 trillion yuan (3.33 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months of the year. The growth rate was 0.7 percentage points lower than that during the first six months, said the NBS.

Investment in the nation's property sector rose 32 percent year-on-year to reach 4.42 trillion yuan, of which 3.18 trillion yuan went into residential housing, an increase of 35.2 percent from the same period last year.

Retail sales grew 17 percent to 13.0811 trillion yuan (about 2.05 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months from a year earlier, said the NBS.

China's industrial value-added output grew 13.8 percent year-on-year in September, higher than the 13.5 percent annual growth in August, according to the NBS.