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China's economic pulse appears to be steadying, with quarterly growth data released Wednesday beating forecasts, but that renewed long-standing concerns over data accuracy. For the second quarter, China reported gross domestic product (GDP) grew 7.0 percent on-year, beating a Reuters poll forecast for 6.9 percent. Industrial output for June rose 6.8 percent on-year, beating a Reuters poll forecast for 6.0 percent, while last month's retail sales climbed 10.6 percent, ahead of the Reuters poll forecast for 10.2 percent. A spokesperson for China's National Bureau of Statistics said GDP figures weren't inflated and the improvement was "hard won," according to a Reuters report. Analysts often doubt the accuracy of official data on the world's second-largest economy. Read More How China might have given itself a black eye "The stronger-than-expected figure will inevitably spark renewed questions over the veracity of the official data," Julian Evans-Pritchard, a China economist at Capital Economics, said in a note Wednesday. But he added, "While actual growth is almost certainly a percentage point or two slower than the official figures show, there are good reasons to think that the latest figures are mirroring a genuine stabilization of conditions on the ground." That's a sentiment mirrored by Louis Kuijs, a China economist at RBS.

"We're always struggling" with China's data releases due to the country's quirks, including only publishing some components annually, said Kuijs, noting that some figures suggest growth should have slowed in the second quarter. But he added, "a welcome development is we can see from looking at the monthly data, the tentative pickup in growth that we had noticed before is confirmed by the June data" on industrial production. Combined with better-than-expected import growth data released this week, "there is now evidence that (the government's) policy response is starting to feed through into the real economy." Read More Singapore's giant wealth fund still bullish on China

Concerns about slowing economic growth on the mainland have spurred policy makers to action. Late last month the People's Bank of China (PBOC) cut interest rates and the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for some lenders in a bigger-than-expected easing package. That marked the PBOC's fourth round of major action since November amid concerns that the government's annual GDP target of "around 7 percent" could be at risk. China last cut both interest rates and the RRR at the same time in December 2008, at the peak of the global financial crisis. The statistics bureau also attributed the quarter's growth stabilization to recent policy steps. "The vitality of the economic development was strengthened," it said in its English-language press release. "However, we must be aware that the domestic and external economic conditions are still complicated, the global economic recovery is slow and tortuous and the foundation for the stabilization of China's economy needs to be further consolidated."