Sentence Correction

The Federal Reserve announcement said that growth had accelerated after slowing in the
second quarter and that the policy makers remain concerned about the prospects of inflation,
even though there are few signs of higher energy prices driving up the cost of other goods so
far.
"¢ that growth had accelerated after slowing in the second quarter and that the policy makers
remain concerned about the prospects of inflation, even though there are few
"¢ growth had accelerated after slowing in the second quarter and that the policy makers remain
concerned about the prospects of inflation, even though there are few
"¢ that growth had accelerated after slowing in the second quarter and the policy makers remain
concerned about the prospects of inflation, even though there are little
"¢ growth had accelerated after slowing in the second quarter and the policy makers remain
concerned about the prospects of inflation, even though there are little
"¢ that growth accelerated after slowing in the second quarter and that the policy makers remain
concerned about the prospects of inflation, even though there are few

Oa is A

[spoiler]Question: is HAD usage in A that too when after(sequence is known) is used is right??[/spoiler]

i chose E..but explanations says opposite to what i was thinking.

I picked E.

I picked A based on parallelism, however i find the use of [spoiler]"had accelerated"[/spoiler] to be awkward.

GMAT experts please comment.

The use of past perfect "had accelerated" makes sense; the announcement is in simple past ("said"), and for that announcement to be made, the accelerated growth must already have occurred.