13 April 2017, 02:29 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In March, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang defended the 2017 target GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent, saying that it was not a low rate and would not be easy to achieve.
"According to the preliminary estimates, the gross domestic product (GDP) of China was 18,068.3 billion yuan [about $2.6 trillion] in the first quarter of 2017, a year-on-year increase of 6.9 percent at comparable prices," the bureau said in a statement.
In 2016, China's GDP grew 6.7 percent, the slowest in over 25 years.
