China's gross domestic product for the first nine months of 2008 increased by 9.9 percent, 2.3 percent lower than last year, China's State Council Information Office said.
"There are no signs of a definite recovery from the financial crisis," bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao said in a nationally televised news conference. "The growth rate has moderated," Li said.
The rate of expansion was the slowest since the second quarter of 2003, when the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, cooled growth to 6.7 percent.
The figures, while still healthy, will fuel fears that worsening economic conditions around the world are hitting Asian growth.
A fall in the growth of exports due to the global economic slowdown was one of the reasons for the cooling of the Chinese economy.
China's economy is based largely on exports, and with people around the world buying less, they are buying fewer Chinese-made goods - a trend likely to continue in the near future, economists say.
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