Growth in China's machinery exports slowed to a crawl in the first half of the year, hurt by weak demand amid an economic slowdown, said a senior official of an industry federation on Tuesday.

First-half machinery exports were up just 1.5 percent year-on-year to $175.3 billion, the China Machinery Industry Federation said. The year-earlier growth rate was about 9.3 percent.

Compared with the country's total export growth in the first half, the machinery industry's export growth rate was 8.9 percentage points lower.