Update | China must sacrifice faster growth for reform, Xi tells Apec summit

President Xi Jinping has reassured Asian business and political leaders that China's economic growth remains healthy and robust despite its recent slowdown.

Xi told a conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum that Beijing was willing to sacrifice the pace of growth for structural economic reform.

But he said the country could not afford to make "fundamental mistakes" and would introduce reform in a systematic way.

"Any such mistakes will be beyond rectification," Xi said. "We must be bold enough to explore and make advances, but sufficiently prudent and careful in planning our action."

His comments came ahead of next month's Communist Party plenum, which is expected to roll out his administration's reform programme.