China’s top economic official made a high-profile bid to bolster confidence in the country’s economy, stock markets and reform programme as Beijing reported its slowest quarterly growth figure in almost a decade.

Vice-premier Liu He on Friday said the world’s second-largest economy faced economic challenges and admonished bankers who he said were sometimes reluctant to support private-sector companies, but insisted China would maintain stable growth.

“If you analyse China’s economy by focusing only on one thing or one period, you might feel it faces difficulty,” Mr Liu told the country’s main media organs: China Central Television, the People’s Daily newspaper and the Xinhua news agency. “But if you look at it from a larger historical perspective, the outlook is very bright.”