James (Jim) Davis Jul 14, 2014:

Need to see more, what follows tenuta can be anything from holding its ground (not collapsing) to performing well, depending on how it is phrased and what follows it. Unfortunately, it is vague. It really means that the increase in VAT didn't affect it, so it continued with very tenuous growth. Of course the same term applied to the Chinese economy would be "... so it continued with very strong growth".

BrigitteHilgner Jul 14, 2014:

the economy remained stable difficult to say without more context; but in the case of a VAT increase one would expect consumers (and maybe some companies, too) to spend less - the expression could mean that the (GDP?) growth rate did not drop but remained stable.