It (NBS) said that “positive factors were accumulating” and priority should be put on “stabilizing economic growth, ensuring employment, and improving efficiency”.

China’s leadership appears comfortable with weaker growth, a development top officials say heralds a “new normal” of more stable, consumer-driven expansion in line with China’s increasingly mature economy.

Still, Communist authorities want to avoid too fast a deceleration that could hurt job growth — a key component of social stability in the world’s most populous nation — and have been taking monetary steps to bolster growth.

-- AFP on April 15