Economy can achieve stable growth

China registered a GDP growth of 6.6 percent last year despite the economic downturn and unfavorable external environment. Which means China can maintain sustainable economic growth despite external economic uncertainties.

Also, China's economic growth last year was in line with the authorities' expectation, which was reflective of the sustainable and positive changes both in the supply and demand sides. On the demand side, China's total retail sales increased 9 percent year-on-year, down 1.2 percentage points compared with 2017. But the ratio of final consumption expenditure to economic growth was as high as 5.03 percent.

The decline in total retail sales growth was mainly because of the rapid increase in service consumption expenditure and because the revenues of sectors such as tourism, culture, information, education and medical care were not included in total retail sales. As for Chinese citizens' consumption transformation and upgrading, the growth rate of service consumption expenditure was higher than that of real goods' consumption.