China on Tuesday announced that its economic growth edged down to 6.8 percent in the final quarter of 2015 as trade and consumer spending weakened.
It meant the country’s full-year growth was at its lowest in 25 years.
“The international situation remains complex,” Wang Bao’an, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a news conference in Beijing.
“Restructuring and upgrading is at an uphill stage. Comprehensively deepening reform is a daunting task,” he added.
Full-year growth declined to 6.9 percent, government data showed on Tuesday.
It was however in line with private sector forecasts and the ruling Communist Party’s official target of about 7 percent for the year.
Growth in China has fallen steadily over the past five years as the ruling Communist Party tries to steer away from a worn-out model based on investment and trade toward self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption and services.
But the unexpectedly sharp decline over the past two years prompted fears of a politically dangerous spike in job losses.
Story by the Associated Press