China pledges stable growth, deepening reform

China keeps its economic growth target unchanged at around 7.5% this year as the government looks to achieve stable growth while driving through reforms for a more balanced model.This is the third consecutive year that the government put the goal at 7.5%, according to China’s (Xinhua) News Agency.China’s economy expanded 7.7% last year, well above the government goal, but a set of data that pointed to softening manufacturing activity in recent months renewed concerns on the growth outlook of the world’s second largest economy.Describing the economy as at a critical juncture where the paths upward is “particularly steep” amid challenges from at home and abroad, China’s Premier Li Keqiangstressed that China must keep economic development as the central task and maintain a “proper economic growth rate”.To ensure the economy stay within a “proper range”, the government promised to continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy.It projected a budget deficit of 1.35 trillion yuan, an increase of 150 billion yuan over last year, and a 13% rise in broad money supply in 2014, while vowing to keep inflation at around 3.5% and create 10 million more urban jobs to ensure the registered urban unemployment rate does not rise above 4.6%.Premier Li announced Wednesday to set up a deposit insurance system, considered a precondition for freeing deposit rates, the last and most important step of interest rate liberalization.China will overhaul the current financing scheme for local governments to issue bonds, its latest step to contain the mounting debt problems.