Leadership vows stable policies

China's to pleadership pledged on Monday to stabilize and improve macro policies to create an amicable environment for economic growth and ongoing structural reforms.

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee said enhancing growth quality and efficiency will be the focus of the nation's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).

The comment was made at a meeting called to discuss the draft of the annual Government Work Report and proposals for the Five-Year Plan.

The nation will continue to implement proactive fiscal policies and prudent monetary policies, while stepping up supply-side structural reforms to power growth, according to a statement released after the meeting, which was chaired by President Xi Jinping.

More should be done to make the most of the potential for domestic demand, the statement said.

The leadership also pledged to speed up the development of modern agriculture and push forward a new round of high level opening-up. Green development will also be made a priority.

Seeing 2016 as a critical year for China to meet its social and economic targets, the leadership listed the cutting of industrial capacity, destocking, deleveraging, lowering corporate costs and identifying weak links as major tasks for the year.

China's economy grew by 6.9 percent year-on-year in 2015, its lowest annual expansion for a quarter of a century, but well in line with the government target of about 7 percent.

Reviewing the economic performance for 2010-15, the meeting heard that China had made "landmark progress" on economic restructuring.

Xinhua