China's economy expanded 11.9 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2010 to 8.06 trillion yuan (1.19 trillion U.S. dollars), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Thursday.

The growth rate is 5.7 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

"With the implementation of the stimulus package to combat the global financial crisis, the Chinese economy achieved a good start to the year as the recovery momentum continues to consolidate, laying a solid foundation for meeting annual economic targets," NBS spokesman Li Xiaochao said.

Li noted that economic conditions remain "very complicated" with many difficulties still existing.

"The government will keep a proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy and make the policy setting more flexible and targeted according developments," he said.