BEIJING, Jan 22: Grim economic news from China and Japan showed the global crisis hitting ever harder on Thursday, burning Asia’s champion exporters while data from the United States signalled more pain to come.

China’s powerhouse economy slowed dramatically at the end of 2008, dragging growth of the world’s third-largest economy to a seven-year low, official data showed, in a striking sign of the current downturn’s strength and reach.

Japan meanwhile warned it was facing a two-year recession and announced new measures to repair battered credit markets after announcing a 35-per cent plunge in exports in December.

“Exports tumbled so much that you cannot believe your eyes,” said Naoki Murakami, chief economist at Monex Securities in Japan.

After breathtaking economic growth in recent decades, China had been widely tipped to ride out the world economic storm that has driven the world’s biggest economies into recession.

But with the Asian giant now gravely suffering too, reporting just 6.8 per cent growth in the last quarter of 2008, signs emerged on Thursday of a knock-on effect, with Australia warning of the impact on its own prospects.

“The Chinese boom that supercharged Australia’s economy over the past five to seven years is receding rapidly,” Australia’s Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner told reporters.

South Korea said its economy was in the worst shape since the East Asian financial crisis a decade ago while Singapore announced a 13-billion-dollar stimulus package and said it would tap its vast financial reserves for the first time.—AFP