Trade frictions with U.S. won't change stable development of China’s economy: stats bureau

BEIJING (Reuters) - Trade frictions with the United States will not change the stable development of China's economy, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday, after reporting robust first-quarter growth.

China's economy will continue to maintain a stable and moderate development trend, Xing Zhihong, spokesman for the National Statistics Bureau (NBS) told a news conference in Beijing.

NBS data showed earlier on Tuesday that China's economy grew 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2018 from a year earlier, pointing to continued resilience in the world's second-largest economy even as its export outlook is being clouded by an escalating dispute with the U.S.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Kim Coghill)