A pick-up of the manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), a warming stock market and a vital consumption market during the National Day holiday following the implementation of existing policies and the recently-unveiled incremental policies led to an improvement in market sentiment, Zheng told a press conference.

The fundamentals of China's economic development and favorable conditions like huge market potential and strong economic resilience have not changed, he was cited as saying by a state-controlled media outlet.

The government announced a policy package last month to stimulate economic recovery. The measures include reducing the reserve requirement ratio for banks and mortgage rates for existing homes, as well as introducing new monetary programmes to boost the capital market.

The recent package of incremental policies was designed to strengthen counter-cyclical macro policy adjustment, expand effective domestic demand, increase efforts to help enterprises, stabilise the real estate market and boost the capital market, Zheng said.

The incremental policies focus on improving the quality of economic development, supporting the healthy development of the real economy and business entities, and balancing high-quality development with high-level security, he said.

He called for speeding up fiscal spending to bolster the economy and providing stronger support for local governments to conduct debt replacement and defuse debt risks.

Several reform measures conducive to economic development will be rolled out, he said. These include guidelines on building a unified national market, a new negative list for market access and mechanisms to ensure increased investment in future industries.

The government will expand the catalogue of industries that encourage foreign investment, unveil a new group of major foreign-invested projects and make its visa-free transit policies more open, Zheng said.

Investment projects worth about $14.14 billion that are in next year's plans will be released in advance this year to support local governments in accelerating the preliminary work and construction, he added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)