BEIJING, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- China's economic growth pickup in 2017 was better than expected and accompanied by improving quality, efficiency, and structure, a spokesperson for the country's top economic planner said Monday.
"China's sound economic performance in 2017 was not the result of just one year, but the accumulation of arduous and lasting efforts since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China," Yan Pengcheng, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at a press conference.
The 6.9-percent GDP growth for 2017 showed "high gold content," Yan said, citing positive changes in economic structure, new growth sources, market vitality, and improving macroeconomic regulation.
During the structural transformation, the country worked hard to improve supply-demand relations and optimize the supply structure, he said.
In 2017, the country's value-added industrial output rose 6.6 percent, reversing the drops of the previous six years, NBS data showed.
The contribution of consumption to economic growth reached 58.8 percent, up from 51.8 percent for 2012.
In the past five years, China has maintained "strategic composure" by not resorting to large amounts of liquidity injection, and has sought new ways to improve macroeconomic regulation, Yan said.
"We have paid more attention to the functions of expectation management in macroeconomic control, raised policy transparency, and defused hidden dangers in the economy in a timely manner," he added.
"Looking ahead, conditions exist for continuous steady economic growth with sound momentum in 2018," Yan said.
China's economy expanded 6.9 percent last year, picking up for the first time in seven years and well above the government annual target of around 6.5 percent.
