Chinese Vice-Premier stresses growth stability, risk prevention

BEIJING - Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He said Friday that the country will strive to maintain steady economic growth and properly ward off financial risks with the macro leverage ratio kept relatively stable.

The key to striking the balance is to properly implement the country's policies with supply-side structural reform at the core, Liu, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, told Chinese reporters.

"The Chinese economy has generally maintained stable performance with an improving growth momentum," Liu said.

"Measured by major indicators such as economic growth, employment, consumer prices, international balance of payment, enterprise profits, fiscal revenue and productivity, China's economic growth remains within a reasonable range," he said.

He said that in the financial sector, monetary policy remains prudent, structural deleveraging has been pushed steadily, institutions' blind expansion disregarding risks has been contained and their investment decisions have become more rational.

However, Liu noted that "the country's economic structural adjustment has yet to be completed, and supply-side structural reform needs to be further advanced."

Looking ahead, the Vice-Premier said focus should be put on enhancing the vitality, resilience and creativity of micro entities to push forward economic transformation and upgrading, and to facilitate a virtuous economic cycle.

The country will step up efforts to support the development of private companies by raising financial accessibility and relieving their burdens, and to deepen state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform, especially mixed-ownership reform, so as to enhance SOE competitiveness, Liu said.

Work must also be done to make the financial system more adaptive, and enhance its capability to serve the real economy, the vice premier said.

"Under the current circumstances, we should particularly accelerate institutional improvement and give full play to the key role of the capital market," Liu said.

"We will continue to implement the proactive fiscal policy, prudent monetary policy, explicit industrial investment policies, and more inclusive and sustainable social policies to further implement the core policy of supply-side structural reform," he said.

China's economy may seem to be in some difficulties from a short-term perspective or being viewed through specific cases. However, its development prospects are very bright when being judged from a historical perspective, according to Liu.

The economy is currently going through a structural transformation that comes with a transition from traditional driving forces to new ones, he said.

It is hard to clearly describe the transition, but several things are clear from the country's demand side: huge demand is being created by a large and growing middle-income group, an aging population and a new round of sci-tech and industrial revolutions; and opportunities are being generated from green development.

"China must identify and seize new opportunities to transform traditional industries, foster new sectors and step up the building of a modernized economy," Liu said.