China's economic growth slowed down slightly to 10.6 percent in the first quarter, compared with 11.7 percent in the same period of last year, the government said Wednesday.

China maintained steady and fast growth since the beginning of the year, despite the unprecedented freak winter weather and the widespread subprime mortgage crisis, the National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Li Xiaochao said.

The world's fourth-largest economy expanded at a blistering 11.9-percent pace for all of 2007, the fifth consecutive year its annual economic growth exceeded 10 percent.

Industrial production rose 16.4 percent year-on-year in the first three months. The increase was 1.9 percentage points lower than that in the same period of 2007.

Fixed asset investment reached 2.18 trillion yuan (311 billion U.S. dollars), up 24.6 percent, which was 0.9 percentage points higher than a year ago.

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(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2008)