China is aiming for slower 2005 economic growth of 8 percent and cannot relax its attempts to rein in the economy, Premier Wen Jiabao said in a report launched today.
The government would maintain "stable and healthy" monetary and fiscal policies, Mr Wen said in excerpts of an annual report to be delivered to parliament on Saturday.
"In the light of current economic conditions, macroeconomic controls cannot be relaxed," Mr Wen said.
Mr Wen, who is trying to guide the world's seventh-biggest economy through challenges such as overhauling its ailing banking system, aimed at a registered urban unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent this year, up from 4.2 per cent at the end of last year.
The 8 per cent economic growth forecast contrasts with the usual 7 per cent forecast issued in previous years and routinely exceeded. China's gross domestic product was 9.5 per cent higher in 2004 than in the year before, when it showed growth of 9.1 per cent.