China's economy saw a strong rebound in 2021 despite sporadic epidemic resurgences and complicated external environment, underlining the country's capability of ensuring economic stability with swift policy response.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 8.1 percent year on year to 114.37 trillion yuan (about 18 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

The pace was well above the government target of "above 6 percent" and put the two-year average growth at 5.1 percent, the data showed.

China continued to lead the world in both economic recovery and epidemic control in 2021, the NBS said, while warning of the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shocks, and weakening expectations amid an increasingly complicated external environment.

Final consumption contributed 65.4 percent to the GDP expansion, while net exports contributed 20.9 percent, said NBS head Ning Jizhe at a press conference.

"China's growth was among the fastest in major economies in the world last year," said Ning, adding that the country's GDP is estimated to account for more than 18 percent of the global total and contribute to some 25 percent of global GDP growth.

With effective measures to contain the spread of the epidemic, China was the only major economy to attain growth in 2020.

The year 2021 was of special importance for China as it marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the beginning of a new journey of building a modern socialist country -- the Second Centenary Goal -- by the mid-21st century.

It was also a year when the economy was faced with multiple headwinds rising from epidemic disruptions, extreme weather events, global energy crunch and hiking commodity prices -- all testing the effectiveness of the country's economic governance.

Policymakers have been carrying out innovations in macroeconomic regulations, stepping up targeted, precise and well-timed measures on top of range-based regulations, which facilitated economic stability, Ning said.

In breakdown, Monday's data showed that retail sales saw a notable recovery, jumping 12.5 percent year on year. Fixed-asset investment posted stable growth of 4.9 percent, while value-added industrial output expanded 9.6 percent from a year earlier.