Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a press conference following session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 15.
Despite an ease in economic growth, China still has a wide range of policy tools at the government’s disposal to boost economic growth, aiming to achieve a better-quality of economic development, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday following the conclusion of China’s annual parliamentary session, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China has a lot of room to maneuver its policy and boost its economy as it has avoided using massive stimulus measures in the past few years, Premier Li Keqiang said following the annual meeting of parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC) — the nation’s biggest yearly political event.
“The good news is that in the past couple of years we did not resort to massive stimulus measures for economic growth. That has made it possible for us to have fairly ample room to exercise macro-economic regulation, and we still have a host of policy instruments at our disposal,” he said.
The comments from Premier Li come as a rare suggestion that Chinese authorities could do much more to jump-start growth.
Premier Li said, however, that achieving this year’s economic growth target of “about 7 percent” will be “by no means easy.”
China’s 7 percent growth target is its lowest in 11 years, and would mark the slowest expansion in a quarter of a century if it came to pass, according to Reuters.
In 2014, China’s economic growth expanded by 7.4 percent, its slowest rate in 24 years and was the first time since 1998 that its growth rate fell short of the government’s official target.
During the news conference that followed the parliamentary session, Premier Li tried to reassure investors and calm fears about a stumbling economy by vowing to keep the economy growing at a reasonable speed.
In the “new normal” era, China needs to ensure its economic growth will operate within an appropriate range, Li said.
Premier Li made assurances that should China’s economic growth come close to a “lower limit” which would affect the employment rate and the increase of income, that “we will be prepared to step up our targeted macro-economic measures to boost the confidence … and at the same time, (we will) increase the intensity of targeted (policy) control.”
Li reiterated that China will maintain the continuity of macro-economic policies to stabilize long-term market expectations.
“We want to further upgrade China’s economy to a medium-high-level of development and maintain China’s economic growth at a medium-high speed,” Li said.
“We want to pursue a growth that has improved quality and performance. This will help lay a more solid foundation for us to achieve modernization. It will also be China’s contribution to global economic growth,” he said.
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