China steps on gas pedal to avert sharper slowdown

BEIJING - China is enacting several new measures to keep its economic growth momentum going and help create an environment for economic restructuring in the long run.

"Development is the key to solving all the problems in China," Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in Changchun, the capital city of Jilin province, at a recent meeting attended by leading officials of the northeastern provinces of Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang.

China must take effective steps to tackle downward pressure facing the economy, otherwise both job creation and people's income will be affected and it will be difficult for China to achieve a better quality and more efficient economy, Li stressed.

Northeastern provinces were among the first to embrace heavy industry after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, but they have been confronted with economic headwinds due to factors like a faltering property market and slow industrial upgrades.

Economic growth rates for Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang slowed last year to 5.8 percent, 6.5 percent and 5.6 percent respectively, some of the weakest in all provincial areas.

Against the backdrop an uneven global recovery and anemic consumption growth at home, many other provincial areas in China felt the same pinch.

The Chinese economy on the whole posted a 7.4 percent growth in 2014, the weakest since 1990. The annual growth target set by the government was lowered to around 7 percent for 2015, with more stress to be laid on better-quality and innovation-driven growth.

China's growth is expected to moderate to 7.1 percent and 7 percent in 2015 and 2016 respectively, reflecting continued policy efforts to address financial vulnerabilities and gradually shift the economy to a more sustainable growth path, the World Bank said Monday in the East Asia Pacific Economic Update report.

China is not taking its foot off the gas pedal to spur economic growth, with robust job creation and steady income growth helping to ease pressure when economic reforms enter the deep-water zone, experts believe.

The goal of creating more than 10 million jobs in urban areas this year was announced in the premier's government work report delivered at the national legislature's annual session in March to ensure that registered urban unemployment rate does not rise above 4.5 percent.

A list of measures has been rolled out to arrest economic slowdown and create new growth engines. A plan was unveiled earlier this month to develop city clusters along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. China has cut the benchmark interest rates twice and dropped the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for banks over the past five months.