China’s economic growth will remain largely stable in the third quarter despite a recent run of gloomy economic data, said the National Bureau of Statistics of China.

“Judging from indicators in July and August, we feel that the economic trend is still stable,” said Sheng Laiyun, spokesperson of the bureau, in a press briefing on Friday. “There may be some deviations, up or down, but they won’t be big, ” he added.

China’s economic growth remains within “a reasonable range”, Mr Sheng stressed.

His comments came after Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported earlier this month that most economic indicators in the first two months of the third quarter showed weaker economic performance.

The statistics bureau revealed on Monday that China’s industrial profits fell 8.8 from previous year in August, the biggest decline since the Government began releasing the monthly data in 2011.

Mr Sheng added in his Friday comments that, in his “personal view”, an economic growth between 6.5 percent and 7.5 percent this year would still be considered as “around 7 percent”.

The Central Government has set a 7-percent growth target for 2015. News agency Reuters reported earlier this month that some analysts predicted China would not reach a 7-percent growth in the third quarter. In the first half of this year, China’s economy expanded 7 percent.