China needs to make aggressive efforts to fine-tune its economic policies in order to support an economy still under downward pressures, Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday, suggesting Beijing will take further action to fight slowing growth.

Nevertheless, Mr Wen reiterated that China - the world's second largest economy - remains on track to meet its official economic growth target of 7.5 per cent for this year.

Mr Wen's remarks came days after China's central bank cut interest rates for the second time in a month, with Beijing desperate to bolster an economy that may have suffered its worst rate of growth since the global financial crisis over the April-June quarter.

"China's current economic situation is generally stable, but it still faces relatively huge downward pressure. We should increase the strength of policy fine-tuning," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Mr Wen as saying during a trip to the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Mr Wen added that China"should maintain its proactive fiscal policy, focusing particularly on improving the structural tax cut policies, while continuing to implement prudent monetary policy to effectively settle the structural contradiction between the supply and demand of credit".

China's previous round of policy fine-tuning is now taking effect and the pace of growth is in line with the official target for this year, said Mr Wen.

In March, Mr Wen cut this year's growth target - from a longstanding annual goal of 8 per cent to 7.5 per cent, which would be the lowest since 1990.

Yesterday, he said the government should also implement existing policies aimed at supporting domestic consumption. It also needed to diversify export channels, Mr Wen added.

Stabilising economic growth is not a short-term measure and long-term preparation is required to handle the impact of the global financial crisis, he said.

China has already introduced new measures to support the economy, ranging from fast-tracking infrastructure investment, providing consumption subsidies in some household sectors and pushing ahead with financial reforms.

In a separate report yesterday, Xinhua said that during his trip, Mr Wen also pledged to restrict speculative demand and investment in property and that this must be made a long-term policy.

"We must unswervingly continue to implement all manner of controls in the property market to allow prices to return to reasonable levels," Mr Wen was quoted as saying when he met residents and local government officials in charge of affordable housing. "We cannot allow prices to rebound, or all our efforts will come to naught,"he said.

Mr Wen said that local governments that introduced or covered up a loosening of curbs on residential real-estate must be stopped. Market expectations about property prices are changing and citizens are worried prices will rise again, he said. Signals in the market are "chaotic" and misleading and speculative information must be stopped, he added.

TODAY