Markets in Asia mostly advanced on Wednesday, following government data that showed the Chinese economy grew in line with expectations for the July-September quarter.
Numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics in China showed the third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.7 percent on-year and 1.8 percent on-quarter.
"Growth is no longer a major concern, as the property frenzy has topped the government's agenda," said Raymond Yeung, chief economist for Greater China at ANZ, in a note. He added it was likely China would aachieve the government's 2016 growth target of 6.5 to 7 percent.
"The government will now focus on capacity reduction and corporate deleveraging," he added.
Among other data released Wednesday, China's fixed-asset investment increased 8.2 percent nominally on-year in the January-September period, retail sales were up 10.7 percent on-year in September and industrial production increased by 6.1 percent on-year in September, missing markets' expectation for a 6.4 percent rise.
The miss in industrial production likely weighed the Australian dollar. which slid to as low as $0.7658 from levels as high as $0.7690 before the release of the data. The Australian dollar is considered a proxy for the health of China's economy as the latter is Australia's largest trading partner. At 2:28 p.m. HK/SIN, the Australian dollar was fetching $0.7665.
Chinese equity markets reacted little; the Shanghai composite was flat, while the Shenzhen composite slipped 0.18 percent.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 ended up 0.21 percent, or 35.30 points, at 16,998.91, while across the Korean Strait, the Kospi edged up 0.02 percent, or 0.51 point, to 2040.94. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index slipped 0.22 percent by afternoon trade.
Australia's ASX 200 rose 0.46 percent, or 24.65 points, to end at 5435.40.
In the broader currency market, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, was nearly flat, trading at 97.894 at 2:33 p.m. HK/SIN, compared with its last close at 97.90.
This was despite stateside data showing the