China has kicked off a conference on setting policy with a pledge to guarantee continued growth, despite an "extremely grim" global economic outlook for the year to come. Economic stability was at the top of the list, with a number of declarations committed to that objective.
Reuters reported that the conference, which began Wednesday, started with a promise from Beijing to maintain "prudent" monetary policy, "proactive" fiscal policy and stable consumer pricing. These are all goals the government has announced before, and their restatement led economists to believe that China intends more fine-tuning of existing policies than drastic action such as monetary easing, despite the government's desire to maintain growth.
Investors had apparently hoped for more decisive action; in the wake of the policy statements the Shanghai stock market dropped 0.9% to close at a 33-month low.
