(LEAD) China's 2015 economic growth decelerates to 25-year low

(ATTN: ADDS statement, details in last 5 paras)

BEIJING, Jan. 19 (Yonhap) -- China's economy grew 6.9 percent last year, official data showed Tuesday, marking the weakest annual growth in 25 years.

The world's second-largest economy expanded 6.8 percent in the fourth-quarter of last year, down from 6.9 percent from the previous quarter.

The quarterly figure also marked the slowest expansion of the Chinese economy since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Softening trade and manufacturing have fueled concerns about the Chinese economy, which has been struggling with stock market routs and mounting debts to local governments.

Chinese leaders are trying to transform their export-oriented economy into a consumption-led one.

The efforts to transform the Chinese economy "are in a crucial period during which challenges need to be overcome and problems need to be resolved, and the task of comprehensively deepening the reform is still heavy," the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China said in a statement.

China's growth in property investments plunged to 1 percent last year from 10.5 percent, according to the NBS data.

The annual growth of China's urban fixed-asset investments also slowed to 10 percent last year compared with a 15.7 percent expansion in 2014.

China's economy grew 7.3 percent in 2014.

kdh@yna.co.kr
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