China strongly committed to deepening reform on all fronts: President Xi

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that China's economy is still operating within the proper range, pledging for strong commitment to deepening reform on all fronts.

In a written interview with the Wall Street Journal, Xi said Chinese economy is under a downward pressure as many countries have encountered difficulties against the overall global economic backdrop.

Calling this is "a problem in the course of progress," Xi emphasized that "China will stay strongly committed to deepening its reform on all fronts while opening still wider to the outside world."

China will work in a coordinated fashion to ensure growth, promote reform, make structural adjustment, improve people's wellbeing and forestall risks, enhancing and innovating macro-regulation and ensuring steady and fairly rapid economic development, Xi said.

The seven percent growth rate of Chinese economy in the first half of the year is hard-won considering the intricacy and changeable nature of the overall global economy, said the president.

"A growth rate of around seven percent would be sufficient to reach our goal of doubling the 2010 GDP and per capita income by 2020," said Xi.

Stressing that the Chinese economy is "still operating within the proper range," Xi said what China needs is a higher quality and efficiency of economic development by successfully addressing the problem of unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development, so that the economy will be put on a more solid basis and go forward more steadily.

China is stepping up efforts to shift the growth model, make structural adjustment and place greater emphasis on developing an innovation- and consumption-driven economy, he said.

"It is our hope that by solving these problems, China's economy will transform itself and retain its robust dynamism for development," said Xi.

Comparing China's economy to a large ship, Xi said any ship, however large, may occasionally get unstable sailing on the high sea.

Investors will come to a right judgment if they have a full understanding of China's progress in economic development since the start of reform and opening-up, of China's strategies formulated recently to ensure sustained and steady growth, and of the relevant data and trends in China's economic performance, the president said.

On the recent unusual fluctuations in the Chinese stock market, Xi said they were mainly the result of previous rapid surges and big fluctuations in the international market.

The Chinese government has taken some measures to defuse systemic risks, and such steps have proved successful, Xi said, adding that similar steps have also been taken in some mature foreign markets as a matter of fact.

Thanks to a mix of stabilizing steps taken, the market has entered a stage of self-correction and adjustment, Xi said.

"To develop th capital market is a key goal of China's reform, which will not change just because of current market fluctuations," he said.

On China's current economic reforms, Xi said an important goal is to enable the market to play the decisive role in resource allocation and make the government better play its role.

According to Xi, in 2014, China advanced reform in various areas in a fast yet steady manner, and 80 major reform tasks were basically completed. On top of that, the relevant government departments completed 108 reform tasks, with 370 reform outcomes delivered in various sectors.

Since the beginning of this year, China has introduced over 70 major reform plans. On September 15, China discussed and adopted a number of reform plans, including the implementation of a system of negative list on market access, policies to support the development and opening-up of key border regions, a decision to accelerate the improvement of the pricing mechanism, and a plan to encourage the injection of non-state capital in investment projects launched by state-owned enterprises in accordance with due procedures.

"This year, we have decided to launch over 100 key reform steps, and more major economic reform steps will be introduced," said the president.

Xi said the current round of reform in China is comprehensive in nature and that "it is being pursued with unprecedented intensity."

"We have made enormous efforts and managed to overcome some long-standing obstacles," Xi said, adding that reform steps have upset the vested interests of some people, and caused changes to the career and life of some people.

"It is only natural that there will be difficulties," Xi said.

"That is why I said that we must be bold enough to crack hard nuts and ford dangerous rapids during reform and that only the daring will prevail at key stages of reform," he said, stressing the significance of down-to-earth efforts at the same time.

"Like an arrow shot that cannot be brought back, we will forge ahead against all odds to meet our goals of reform," said the president. Endi