The Chinese flag flies outside the headquarters of the People's Bank of China in Beijing.

Three top Chinese financial regulators spoke in support of local markets on Friday, just ahead of the morning's disappointing gross domestic product report and amid an ongoing stock sell-off.

All three statements were transcripts of interviews with media, according to postings on each government organization's website.

"The recent stock market volatility is primarily the result of investor expectations and emotions," said the Chairman of the People's Bank of China, Yi Gang, according to a CNBC translation.

China's economic fundamentals are good, in contrast to the historically low valuations in the stock market, Yi added.

The central bank "actively encourages" some local governments' policies to support the liquidity of businesses based there, and is promoting plans to support equity and bond financing of private enterprises, he said.

The Shanghai composite is trading near four-year lows, hit by worries about economic slowdown, increasing trade tensions with the U.S. — China's largest trading partner – and a global market sell-off in the last few weeks.

The index ended Friday's morning session little changed after China reported third-quarter gross domestic product of 6.5 percent, its weakest since 2009 and missing expectations of 6.6 percent from a Reuters poll of analysts. The country remains on pace to meet its official growth target of roughly 6.5 percent.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's top economic advisor Liu He said in an interview Friday published by state news agency Xinhua that the stock market slump is due partly to the U.S-China trade tensions and other external factors. Liu also attributed the decline to China's economic transition and economic uncertainty, but that the sell-off could be good for the stock market's healthy long-term development.

China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Liu Shiyu said in a separate statement that the commission has maintained a baseline of financial market reform, opening up innovation as it seeks to stabilize and boost market confidence.

"[We will] encourage local government-managed funds, qualified private equity investment funds, broker-managed products or newly organized funds, to help relieve the stock pledge difficulties of public companies with good prospects but are temporarily facing operational difficulties, so they can develop healthily," Liu said.