The growth of China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell to 6.5 percent in the third quarter of 2018 due to Beijing's trade war with Washington, which did not surpass the official forecast but was lower than experts' expectations, the data of China's National Bureau of Statistics showed on Friday, according to Sputnik.
"According to preliminary calculations, China's year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of 2018 was 6.8 percent, it amounted to 6.7 percent in the second quarter and was 6.5 percent in the third quarter," the agency's report read.
Meanwhile, experts, cited by media, expected China's GDP growth to fall to 6.6 percent in the third quarter of 2018.
The authorities have said that the GDP growth will reach around 6.5 percent this year.
The US-Chinese trade war started in July when US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on some Chinese imports in order to fix the US-Chinese $500 billion trade deficit. Since then, the two sides have exchanged several rounds of import duties on each other in spite of numerous attempts to resolve the conflict via dialogue.
Later, the conflict escalated further, with US imposing sanctions on the Chinese Defense Ministry and the Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport over China's intentions to purchase Russian aircraft and S-400 air defense missile systems. This triggered China's withdrawal from the trade talks.