Photo taken on Feb. 1, 2018 shows bullet trains waiting to be maintained in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province. (Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu)

China's economy is facing downward pressure, but efforts to keep employment, finance, trade and other fields stable are paying off.

BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- China is not deliberately pursuing particular GDP numbers, but is after reasonable economic growth with quality and efficiency, the country's top statistics official said Friday.

The country's quarterly GDP fluctuations are normal, Ning Jizhe, head of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), told a press conference, adding that quarterly GDP data might see bigger swings in other countries.

China saw its economy expand 6.4 percent, 6.2 percent, 6 percent and 6 percent, respectively, in the past four quarters.

Photo taken on July 11, 2018 shows the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in south China. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

Ning said China's economy is facing downward pressure, but efforts to keep employment, finance, trade and other fields stable are paying off.

NBS data showed that China's GDP grew 6.1 percent year on year in 2019, the fastest among economies with a size of over 1 trillion U.S. dollars.

Photo taken on April 12, 2019 shows people working at a pearl farm in a reservoir in Weiying Town of Sihong County, east China's Jiangsu Province. Jiangsu has made great efforts to adjust the ecological layout, optimize the industrial structure and adhere to green development in recent years. (Xinhua/Zhang Lianhua)

Steady GDP expansion is expected this year as the basic trend of the Chinese economy maintaining steady growth toward long-term sound development remains unchanged, Ning said.

Pro-growth policies will be gradually implemented as outlined by the central government, and the country's more than 120 million market entities will also contribute to China's high-quality and efficient growth, he added. ■