Preliminary official data indicate that the annual rate of growth in Portuguese gross domestic product slowed to 2.1 percent last year from 2.8 percent the year before but still faster than 2016’s 1.2 percent hike, Xinhua reports.

The Chinese government-run news agency, citing figures given by the Portuguese Statistics Institute, says the annual rate of GDP growth in fourth quarter of last year was 1.7 percent.

The report says Portuguese GDP growth last year was faster than GDP growth in the European Union (1.8 percent) or the Eurozone (1.9 percent).

Portuguese GDP has grown steadily since May 2014, three years after the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund pumped €78 billion (about US$88 billion) into bailing-out the economy.