China’s economic growth will recover steadily along with Beijing’s relaxation of its coronavirus policy, Premier Li Keqiang told the visiting heads of international organisations on Thursday. The outgoing premier also pledged cooperation to address debt and climate change challenges to the heads of the World Bank, World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Huangshan, Anhui province. Li’s optimistic expectations came as the world’s second-largest economy has pivoted its strict zero-Covid strategy in recent weeks, allowing home quarantine for mild and asymptomatic cases amid the latest efforts to mitigate the impact on industrial production and social mobility. “China has stabilised employment, price levels and also kept growth in a reasonable range. It’s not an easy job given pandemic shocks,” Li said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. We’ll better coordinate pandemic control and social development and maintain a good order for production and living Li Keqiang The individual meetings came ahead of the seventh group dialogue of the so-called 1+6 round-table discussion on Friday, which will also include the visiting heads of the International Labour Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Financial Stability Board. “We’ll better coordinate pandemic control and social development and maintain a good order for production and living,” Li told World Bank president David Malpass on Thursday. Li also told Malpass that China was committed to building a market-oriented and law-based environment and welcomed further foreign investment. The rigid implementation of the zero-Covid policy to curb the highly contagious but less harmful Omicron variant has been attributed as one of the key reasons China’s economy has underperformed this year. China’s economy grew by just 0.4 per cent in the second quarter when the financial and economic hub of Shanghai was under lockdown before it recovered to 3.9 per cent expansion in the third quarter. But with gross domestic product growth of just 3 per cent in the first three quarters of the year, it will be almost impossible for China to achieve the annual growth target of “around 5.5 per cent”, which was set earlier this year. Contact-intensive sectors have been the hardest hit, but uncertainties have also haunted private entrepreneurs and foreign investors. Li, who will step down from his 10-year premiership in March, has rolled out rounds of infrastructure spending since late May, while he has also pressured local officials to end one-size-fit-all virus control measures. What does ending zero-Covid mean for China’s yuan? In a separate meeting with IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva, Li said that China would continue to work with international financial organisations to counter global challenges, including debt and climate change. The premier also vowed to keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable, which would be conducive for the stability of international supply chains. The yuan has weakened this year against an extraordinarily strong US dollar and a weak economic outlook. Li’s remark came after China reported its worst monthly trade figures in around two and half years, with November’s data reflecting the harsh toll that the nation’s strict zero-Covid policy has taken on the economy this year. In a tone-setting meeting on Tuesday, China’s top leadership pledged to stabilise growth, employment and prices next year and many analysts now expect China to set a growth target of around 5 per cent for next year.