Chinese Premier Li Keqiang says that China will not pursue heavy-handed stimulus measures in order to spur economic growth, despite the impacts of a renewed round of Covid lockdowns and uncertainty in the real estate sector.
“[China’s] macro-economic policies are targeted and vigorous as well as rationally moderate,” Li said during a virtual meeting with the Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held on 19 July.
“[We] will not unveil excessively large-scale stimulus measures, engage in excessive monetary issuance, or make overdrafts on the future for the purpose of excessively high growth targets.”
While Covid-related impacts led to a decline in key economic indicators in the month of April, Li said that Chinese policymakers had “responded decisively, made prompt adjustments, made the stabilisation of growth an even greater priority, and firmly refrained from flood-style irrigation.”
“[We] unveiled and implemented a raft of 33 policies and measures, which eased declines in key economic indicators in May…in June the economy stabilised and recovered, with key indicators rapidly bouncing back,” he said.
“The raft of growth stabilisation measures and policies still have considerable room to take effect, with value-added tax credits for the first half of the year already exceeding 1.8 trillion yuan.
“The ongoing implementation of policies will further expand actual tax rebates…the actual usage of special bonds by local governments, and the unveiling of new policy and development financial tools will form effective investment and drive employment and consumption.”
