China pledges to step up economic support amid fears of slowdown

(Sharecast News) - China's leadership on Thursday pledges to increase support for the local economy, days after the country's central bank big stimulus measures amid nervousness over a slowdown.

The ruling politburo, which is headed by President Xi Jinping, said it would issue more government bonds to help drive government investment, according to state media reports of the closed meeting. No specifics were provided.

"We should increase the intensity of countercyclical adjustment of fiscal and monetary policies," the state news agency Xinhua cited officials as saying, adding that they would implement "necessary fiscal spending" to meet this year's economic growth target of around 5%.

The world's second-largest economy has been under deflationary pressures as consumers rein in spending amid worries over job security, while an increasingly frail property market has also hit confidence.

Earlier in the week the People's Bank of China unveiled its biggest set of monetary policy easing measures since the Covid-19 pandemic, cutting a wide range of interest rates and a 1 trillion yuan liquidity injection into the financial system.

Separately, Bloomberg News reported China was also considering the injection up to 1 trillion yuan of capital into its biggest state banks to increase their capacity to support the struggling economy, mainly by issuing new special sovereign bonds.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com