China is capable and confident of reaching its annual economic growth target of around 6.5 percent in 2018 despite the increasing downward pressure, and the economy will maintain steady growth next year, a spokesperson of the country's statistics bureau said on Friday.
The comments came after the bureau released economic data which has been closely watched amid the ongoing trade tensions between China and the US.
China's economy grew 6.5 percent in the third quarter from a year ago, a 0.2 percentage point lower than in the second quarter, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday.
The reading was the weakest year-on-year quarterly growth in wake of the global financial crisis.
Industrial output for September rose 5.8 percent year-on-year while retail sales jumped 9.2 percent in September from a year earlier, bouncing back from months of weaker growth.
"In general, the economy for the first three quarters remained a stable trend. Meanwhile, external uncertainties apparently increased, and the pain of domestic structural adjustments persists. Amid stability, there is change and a slowdown in the Chinese economy, the downward pressure of the economy has increased," NBS spokesperson Mao Shengyong told reporters at a press briefing on Friday.
But there is also certainty in the positive, like the Chinese economy's resilience and good fundamentals, and the dividend to be received by continued reform and opening-up, Mao said.
The country's economy grew 6.7 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2018, according to official statistics. China set its official growth target this year at around 6.5 percent. The latest data showed the country is on track to meet its target.
