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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is fully confident that it is capable of keeping its economic growth rate within an appropriate range in 2019 in spite of challenges, state news agency Xinhua reported Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as saying on Friday.

“China’s economy has enough resilience, potential and ample room for growth, especially with a huge domestic market and rich human resources of nearly 1.4 billion people,” Li said at a discussion with some foreign experts working in China.

“Therefore, we are fully confident and capable of keeping economic growth rate within an appropriate range in spite of multiple risks and challenges in 2019,” he said.

The world’s second largest economy grew 6.6 percent in 2018, the slowest annual pace since 1990, amid pressure from faltering domestic demand and bruising U.S. tariffs.

Economists polled by Reuters expect the Chinese economy to cool further this year to 6.3 percent as those pressures continue.