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BEIJING, Aug. 14-- China's economic resilience again defied doom-mongers' projections as the country's steady upward momentum is well-positioned to withstand external pressure. "Facing mounting challenges home and abroad, the Chinese economy continued to operate within a reasonable range with steady upward momentum in July," Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), told a press conference Wednesday. In the first seven months of this year, high-tech industries outpaced the overall industrial sector in both investment and output, NBS data showed. The investment in high-tech manufacturing surged 11.1 percent year on year, 5.4 percentage points faster than total fixed-asset investment growth, while high-tech manufacturing output rose 8.7 percent, 2.9 percentage points faster than total industrial output. Foreign trade also maintained steady expansion as exports expanded 10.3 percent from a year ago to 1.53 trillion yuan (218 billion U.S. dollars) in July alone and imports went up 0.4 percent to 1.21 trillion yuan. Excluding auto sales, which were affected by the country's new emissions standards that came into effect in July, retail sales rose 8.8 percent last month, holding steady with that in June. Job data offers a wealth of information regarding economic strength. China's job market remained generally stable in July, with 8.67 million new urban jobs created in the first seven months, accomplishing 79 percent of the annual target. | 
