China's leaders pledge to maintain growth momentum

China needs to strengthen its economic growth momentum while guarding against financial risks, its top leaders said after their first meeting to discuss the economy in the first quarter.

Their remarks underscored Beijing's priority of achieving stable economic growth and indicate the new leadership may take steps to prevent a further slowdown in economic growth, which eased to 7.7 per cent in the first quarter from 7.9 per cent in the preceding three months.

On the other hand, they also suggested that Beijing isn't going to adopt a drastic stimulus plan, for fear that aggressive credit and investment growth may induce new financial risks.

A massive stimulus programme adopted during the 2008-2009 global crisis caused debts, especially at the local government level, to balloon.

"Domestically, there's a need to strengthen the momentum of economic growth," a statement on the government website said after the meeting yesterday of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party Politburo, chaired by Xi Jinping.

"There remain a lot of factors that may hurt stable agricultural production," it said. "We also need to step up preventing potential risks in the financial sector. Pollution, as well as food and medicine safety problems, remain prominent."