China’s third-quarter gross domestic product figures will give vital clues as to whether Beijing has been successful in its balancing act of maintaining strong growth and manageable inflation. They will also indicate whether Shanghai’s recent equity market rally can be sustained.

A flood of data from the country arrives on Thursday, with investors also scrutinising industrial production and consumer inflation figures for September.

The third-quarter GDP figures are set to show that the Chinese economy has expanded less quickly than in the first half. But consensus forecasts of 9.5 per cent would banish the nightmare scenario for the world economy of a slowdown in China at the same time as the austerity measures of the western nations weigh on demand.