China's National Bureau of Statistics lowered last year's economic growth figure from a previously calculated 7.4 percent to 7.3 percent now. The authority said on its website on Monday, the downward revision was a "preliminary confirmation," with a final confirmation coming in January 2016.

The new number remains the lowest Chinese expansion rate since 1990 - when growth plummeted to 3.9 percent - and comes after more than two decades of double-digit growth that made China a key driver of the world economy.

Finance minister Lou Jiwei told a G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors in Ankara at the weekend that the economy had entered a "new normal". Growth was "expected to remain at around seven percent and the situation may sustain for four to five years", he said.

Chinese growth slowed in the first two quarters of this year, reaching an annualized 7.0 percent in both periods. China's Communist rulers are currently trying to change economic policy, aiming to replace investment- and export-driven growth with a more sustainable model based on domestic consumption.

No worries

Nomura International analyst Wendy Chen said Monday's GDP correction was largely related to service sectors, which were key to the overall transition but had lower growth than earlier figures showed.

"This means China's economic structure did not improve as well as expected", she told the news agency AFP.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency, played down growth concerns, saying electricity consumption and railway cargo transport improved in August. Property prices and transaction volumes also rose, it said in a statement Monday, predicting the economy was "able to achieve the full-year expansion target" of around seven percent.

Data showing an official gauge of Chinese manufacturing at a three-year low sent world markets into a tailspin last week, as investors gave vent to worries the economy is headed for a "hard landing".

China last month reduced interest rates for the fifth time since November and cut the amount of money banks must hold in reserve, to try to bolster its economy and restore market confidence.

Investors, however, remain alarmed about a major slowdown in China, especially since last month's move by authorities to lower the yuan currency's central rate against the US dollar by nearly five percent in a single week.

uhe/cjc (Reuters, AFP, dpa)