STEADY economic growth in April lays a good foundation for achieving China’s full-year growth target, a spokeswoman from the country’s statistics bureau said yesterday.

Liu Aihua said she expects investment will maintain healthy growth but that there is less room for a boost from infrastructure investment.

China’s government has set a GDP growth target of around 6.5 percent this year, down from the actual 6.9 percent in 2017.

China yesterday reported weaker-than-expected investment and retail sales in April and a drop in home sales, clouding its economic outlook.

Fixed-asset investment grew the slowest since 1999 and the pace of retail sales softened to a four-month low, official data showed, suggesting a loss of momentum following generally soft readings in March.

The lone bright spot was industrial output, which jumped more than expected as the automobile sector rebounded and steel production surged.

Industrial output rose 7 percent in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said, beating analysts’ estimates for a rise of 6.3 percent and up from a seven-month low of 6 percent in March.

The statistics bureau said Sino-U.S. trade frictions have yet to show an impact on China’s economy.

China’s fixed-asset investment growth slowed to 7 percent in the January-April period from the same period a year earlier.

Analysts polled previously had predicted growth of 7.4 percent, easing only slightly from the January-March period.

Private sector fixed-asset investment growth cooled to 8.4 percent in the January-April period, from 8.9 percent in the first three months.

Private investment accounts for about 60 percent of overall investment in China and has rebounded this year as growth in investment by State firms slows.

Growth in infrastructure spending, a powerful economic driver last year, slowed to 12.4 percent in the first four months of the year.(SD-Agencies)