BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) - China's economy grew 6.7 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, steady from the first quarter and slightly better than expected as the government stepped up efforts to stabilise growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Analysts polled by Reuters had predicted gross domestic product (GDP) would dip to 6.6 percent in the second quarter, which would have been the weakest since the global financial crisis.

Second quarter GDP rose 1.8 percent quarter-on-quarter, the statistics bureau said on Friday, also better than economists had forecast.

Weighed down by sluggish demand at home and abroad, industrial overcapacity and cooling private investment, China's economy grew 6.9 percent in 2015, its slowest rate in more than two decades.

Policymakers have turned to record credit expansion and an infrastructure spending spree to stabilise growth this year, but concerns are growing about the dangers of too much debt-fuelled stimulus and delays to economic reforms that could hurt longer-term growth.

China's statistics bureau said that the economy still faces downward pressure, but that economic growth in the first half lays a good foundation for achieving the government's 2016 target.

(Reporting by Kevin Yao and Winni Zhou; Editing by Kim Coghill)