Vice-Premier confident in China's economy

BOAO, Hainan — Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli on Friday expressed his confidence in China's economy when meeting with global entrepreneurs during the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia (BFA).

China's sound economic fundamentals remain unchanged, Zhang said in a meeting on the sidelines of the BFA annual conference in the southernmost province of Hainan.

Executives from companies including Tata Sons, Mitsui Fudosan and Qualcomm attended the symposium.

"The Chinese economy has long-term prosperity and achieved development miracles," Zhang said.

Thanks to reform and opening up, China saw average annual GDP growth of 9.9 percent from 1978 to 2010. In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period, the pace slowed to 7.8 percent.

China expanded 6.7 percent year-on-year in 2016, contributing to more than 30 percent of global economic growth.

"Job increases surpassed expectations, economic restructuring accelerated and people's livelihood continued to improve," Zhang said, noting that the economy is stabilizing.

There have been increasing bright spots in the economy, Zhang said, including new growth momentum, new technology and new business models.

"The Chinese economy is resilient, and has great potential," Zhang said, adding that growth will be backed by sufficient human resources, an enormous market, a strong real economy, technological improvements and complete infrastructure.

China has seen robust outbound and inbound investment, and ongoing urbanization will create room for further development, Zhang said.

In face of cumulative structural problems, China will push forward supply-side structural reform to realize economic transformation, and improve quality and general competitiveness, Zhang said, pledging more efforts to cut excess capacity, reduce inventories, bring down leverage, relieve corporate burdens and fix weak links.

China will downsize steel and coal sectors by 50 million metric tons and 150 million tons in 2017, respectively, according to Zhang.