China's economy maintained a steady pace with a GDP growth of 6.7 percent in 2016, said China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.

The world’s second-largest economy finished the year on a positive note as GDP grew 6.8 percent during the fourth quarter, while in each of the first three quarters China posted a consistent 6.7 percent increase in GDP.

The fourth quarter increase also marked the first quarterly improvement since the final three months of 2014.

NBS stated the Q4 figure is a “good start” for the government’s goal of achieving 6.5 percent annual growth through 2020, and China’s economy was within a proper range with improved quality and efficiency.

For the full year, GDP amounted to 74.4 trillion yuan (10.8 trillion US dollars), and the growth figure was within the government's target range set for the year, although it was the slowest pace of growth in 26 years.

“Over the past year, the features of a new normal have become more prominent," said Ning Jizhe, director of NBS, said on Friday. "This is what we’ve been talking about for a long time. Economic restructuring is happening.”

Regarding the faked economic data issue from China’s northeastern Liaoning Province, Ning responded that the government has implemented a series of measures to ensure data authenticity, and the released GDP data is "solid and reliable."

Earlier on Tuesday, Chen Qiufa, governor of Liaoning Province, had said that his province had inflated its GDP figures from 2011 to 2014, in his annual work report, according to People’s Daily.

The NBS data showed that, industrial output grew 6 percent from a year ago. That's slightly down from the 6.2 percent booked in November.

Retail sales closed out the year strongly rising 10.9 percent in December, from a year earlier, delivering full-year growth of 10.4 percent.

Fixed-asset investment grew 8.1 percent in 2016 from 2015. The rate dropped 0.2 percent compared with that in the first 11 months.

The pillar property sector saw an annual increase of 6.9 percent in investment for 2016, up from 6.5 percent seen in the first 11 months.

After a steady development in 2016, 2017 is not going to be a bed of roses.

Economists expect many headwinds coming, especially from the property industry.

Yang Zhao, chief economist at Nomura China, said: "For 2017 we think that growth still faces downward pressures, mainly coming from the real estate sector. We know that since last October lots of local governments started strengthen restrictive policies towards the real estate market, and we believe they are going to eventually cool down the sentiment in property sales first and then property investment growth. Since property investment growth still accounts for one quarter of the overall fixed asset investment, so that is the biggest drag for 2017."