BEIJING: China’s economic growth hit a three-decade low in 2018, adding to pressure on Beijing to beef up stimulus measures and settle a tariff war with Washington.

Growth slowed to 6.6 per cent from 2017’s 6.9pc as both the world’s appetite for China’s exports and domestic consumer spending weakened, official data showed Monday.

Forecasters said they expect Beijing to try to shore up growth by making credit cheaper, raising government spending and adopting measures to encourage sales of autos and consumer goods.

Communist leaders want to steer China toward slower, more self-sustaining growth driven by consumer spending instead of trade and investment. But the slowdown has been sharper than expected, prompting Beijing to boost spending on construction of roads and bridges and to order banks to lend more, especially to the entrepreneurs who generate most of China’s new jobs and wealth.

“Downward pressure on the economy is increasing,” the commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, Ning Jizhe, said at a news conference. He cited import controls, volatile financial markets and declining investment spending as factors.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2019