BRIGHT SIDE
Viewed against an international backdrop, a 6.9 percent growth was "not a low rate" and outshined other global economies, Wang said, defending it as a hard-won achievement.
Though slowing, China still contributed more than 25 percent of the global economic growth, he said.
Employment remained stable, with the surveyed unemployment rate in major cities standing around 5.1 percent. Income also continued to increase steadily, Wang noted.
While old engines in China's economy -- investment and trade -- lost steam, services and consumption took the reins.
End-user consumption, including resident and government spending, contributed 66.4 percent of the national GDP growth in 2015, up 15.4 percentage points from 2014, the NBS data showed.
While expecting some sectors to weaken further this year as authorities advance reforms to cut overcapacity and reduce costs, Wang was confident that China could attain a steady growth in 2016, pointing to thriving emerging industries and new business models.
Online retail sales of goods surged 31.6 percent in 2015, well above the total retail sale growth, he told reporters. Sales of new energy vehicles soared by more than 160 percent, while the output growth for the high-tech industry reached 10.2 percent, 4.1 percentage points higher than the overall industrial output.
China's efforts to make the economy greener and more productive also sank in, with energy consumption per unit of GDP falling 5.6 percent and overall labor productivity, measured by output per worker, rising 4,733 yuan last year, Wang said.
