China will focus on stabilizing its economic fundamentals this year, setting its GDP growth target at around 5.5 percent, as the world's second-largest economy strengthen measures to shore up growth against possible strong headwinds.

  Premier Li Keqiang made the announcement in the Government Work Report delivered at the opening of the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress on Saturday.

  As part of broader steps to ensure people's well-being, the government will also strive to create at least 11 million jobs in urban areas and keep the surveyed urban unemployment rate below 5.5 percent.

  The government has set the deficit-to-GDP ratio for 2022 at around 2.8 percent, down from last year's target of around 3.2 percent, in a move to boost fiscal sustainability, while the special-purpose bonds for local government will total 3.65 trillion yuan ($580 billion), Li said.

  China will maintain the increase of its consumer price index, a key gauge of inflation, at around 3 percent, and keep its annual grain output at over 650 million metric tons for this year, he said.

  He pledged that the implementation of the prudent monetary policy will be stepped up, saying that the government will expand the scale of new loans and keep the macro leverage level generally stable.

  The exchange rate of the yuan will also be kept generally stable at an adaptive, balanced level, he said.

  "A comprehensive analysis of evolving dynamics at home and abroad indicates that this year our country will encounter many more risks and challenges, and we must keep pushing to overcome them," Li said. "The harder things get, the more confident we must be, and the more solid steps we must take to deliver outcomes."

  In stabilizing growth, the premier stressed the importance of front-loading policy measures and deploying the policy tools in reserve in a timely manner.

  Li announced a new package of tax refunds and cuts totaling 2.5 trillion yuan this year, including a temporary exemption on value-added tax payments to small taxpayers and a measure to halve the corporate income tax for micro and small businesses with an annual taxable income of 1 million to 3 million yuan.

  The package also included VAT refunds targeting primarily small and micro businesses and those in the manufacturing sector totaling 1.5 trillion yuan.

  Source: China Daily