China's economy expanded at its slowest pace in over three years as dire problems overseas started to hit home hard.
The figures fuelled expectations of more stimulus moves from the government.
The world's second largest economy grew 7.6% in the second quarter year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
This was the weakest growth since 6.6% during the depths of the global financial crisis at the start of 2009.
''The slowdown was mainly due to the continued deterioration in the international environment, which further dampened foreign demand," statistics bureau spokesman Sheng Laiyun said.
"Domestic demand eased also as macro-economic tightening, particularly controls on the real estate sector, continued," he added.
The weak second-quarter expansion dragged down growth to 7.8% for the first half of the year, a period when the debt crisis in Europe has deepened and the US economy has continued to struggle.
Sheng expressed confidence that the economy would stabilise and China would meet its full-year growth target of 7.5%. "I believe China's economy will continue moderate and steady growth in the second half of the year," he said, citing the potential for investment, consumption and exports to propel expansion the rest of the year.
"We are very confident in achieving the full-year growth target," he added.
But the target growth rate of 7.5% is still well down on the 9.2% achieved last year, and 10.4% in 2010. The government last week took the rare step of slashing interest rates for the second time in a month. That came after three cuts since December in banks' reserve requirements, or the amount of money they must keep on hand.
Such cuts are meant to free up funds for lending and thus boost the economy. Chinese leaders have vowed to take further measures.
Premier Wen Jiabao this week called stabilising economic growth the government's "top priority". Slowing growth in China is also casting a further cloud over the broader global economy, which is still suffering the effects of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Employment figures in the US, the world's biggest economy, remain weak and Europe is struggling to overcome its sovereign debt crisis.
Besides the growth figures, the bureau released a slew of other economic statistics today that backed up the broader slowdown. Growth in retail sales, the main gauge of consumer spending, continued to slow in June, rising 13.7% in June compared with the same time a year earlier, marginally down from growth of 13.8% in May.
Output from China's millions of factories and workshops also continued to slow, growing by 9.5% year-on-year in June, the bureau said, down from 9.6% in May.
However, indicating that some government measures to revive growth were starting to kick in, China's urban fixed asset investments rose 20.4% in the first half of 2012 compared with a year earlier, the bureau said.
The investments for the half year compared with growth of 20.1% in the first five months of the year, signalling a slight increase in June. Fixed asset investments are a key measure of government spending on infrastructure.
