Li: Economic growth to stay within 'reasonable range'

Premier Li Keqiang pledged on Sunday to keep China's economic growth within a "reasonable range" as it enters the "new normal" development era.

"If the downturn affects employment and incomes, or comes close to the bottom line for growth, we will stabilize policy and the market's long-term expectations, while enhancing the strength of target policy control to stabilize confidence," he said at the news conference after the close of the annual session of the National People's Congress on Sunday.

"We haven't introduced strong short-term stimulus measures in recent years, so there is a great deal of room to take more measures."

Li confirmed that China will face greater economic slowdown pressure this year, and the key is to find a balance between stabilizing growth and adjusting the economic structure.

"We can keep the Chinese economy growing at a moderately high rate and contribute a lot to the global economy as long as we focus on improving the quality and efficiency of the growth," he said.

China's economic growth slowed to a 24-year low of 7.4 percent in 2014. The government annual work report has lowered this year's target to around 7 percent, down from around 7.5 percent last year.