On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its forecast for global economic growth in 2015 to 3.5% from 3.8%. The IMF also trimmed China’s GDP growth to 6.8%, citing that China’s housing-market problems are more serious than originally expected.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China put out a report yesterday showing that China’s economy grew 7.4% in 2014, the slowest pace in more than two decades. The NBS said that China’s economy continues to face a housing glut, soaring debt and overcapacity in many industries.

According to the Wall Street Journal, construction in China has ground to a halt on many sites as developers wait to see if the market will turn around. China’s industrial production, which ran at a rate above 8% in 2013, tumbled to 6.9% last August and the trend continues downward.

Two factors that helped boost China’s GDP last year may not be there in 2015. One of them is China’s stimulus. Last November, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) cut the one-year benchmark lending rate by 0.4% to 5.6%, and the one-year benchmark deposit rate by 0.25% to 2.75%. The stimulus efforts helped boost industrial production and consumer spending in the Q4 last year. Consumer spending accounted for 51.2% of China’s GDP in 2014.

The second factor was the record trade surplus, printed at US $382.46 billion in 2014, a 47.2% increase from the surplus of US $259.75 billion in 2013. Exports rose 6.1% in 2014, down from an increase of 7.9% in 2013. Exports will be a big challenge for China in 2015 as Japan and China are facing off in an Asian currency war.

With China’s record trade surplus, the U.S. Congress could ask China to allow the yuan currency to appreciate, a factor that could further erode China’s GDP in 2015.