China's National Bureau of Statistics on Monday said the country's gross domestic product grew 6.6% year on year in 2018, the slowest pace of growth seen since 1990.
NBS also revised down China's GDP growth to 6.8% for 2017 from the figure of 6.9% it released a year ago. The world's second biggest economy grew at 6.7% in 2016, data from NBS showed.
The 2018 GDP growth was within expectations amid a year-on-year slowdown in third quarter growth to 6.5% and in Q4 to 6.4%, analysts said.
"The China-US economic and trade friction did have an impact on China's economic operations. The impact is generally manageable," NBS director Ning Jizhe said at a press conference on Monday.
While the trade tensions emerged in Q2, the biggest impact was seen in Q4, he said.
"We must note that China's economic growth is generally driven by domestic demand," he said. "The room for China's domestic market development is very broad. The economic and trade friction will not change the fundamentals of China's economic development."
Ning said China's steady economic growth trend would not change over the longer term.
The country's GDP growth is expected to slow to around 6.2% in 2019, according to the Economics & Development Research Institute, the think tank of state-run Sinopec, the world's largest refiner by capacity.
This is in line with the World Bank's projections in a report called 'Darkening Skies'.
EDRI attributed the slowdown to trade tensions with Washington, uncertainties in international capital flows, weakening domestic investment, tighter credit controls, property market curbs and tighter infrastructure financing.
Beijing is expected to push for more stimulus and tax cuts to boost the economy in 2019, China's 70th anniversary.
