CHINA is fully confident that it is capable of keeping its economic growth rate within an appropriate range in 2019 in spite of challenges, Xinhua quoted Premier Li Keqiang as saying Friday.

“China’s economy has enough resilience, potential and ample room for growth, especially with a huge domestic market and rich human resources of nearly 1.4 billion people,” Li said at a discussion with some foreign experts working in China.

“Therefore, we are fully confident and capable of keeping economic growth rate within an appropriate range in spite of multiple risks and challenges in 2019,” he said.

The world’s second-largest economy grew 6.6 percent in 2018, the slowest annual pace since 1990, amid pressure from faltering domestic demand and trade tensions.

China will take steps to spur growth, but there is limited room for aggressive stimulus, policy insiders said.

During the 2008-09 global financial crisis, China rolled out a 4-trillion-yuan (US$591 billion) spending package to fight a downturn, quickly reviving growth but also prompting a credit explosion.

Authorities have taken a raft of pro-growth measures in the past year, in the form of cuts to the levels of cash banks must hold as reserves to spur lending, tax cuts, and efforts to accelerate infrastructure spending.

Some Chinese factories have felt the pinch from higher U.S. tariffs, but there are few signs of a sharp rise in unemployment due to a more resilient services sector and a shrinking pool of workers as a result of the country’s demographic changes.

“We should be vigilant about employment pressure, but it’s too early to talk about serious problems,” said a policy insider.

Further reductions in banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR) are expected in coming quarters, but the central bank will not rush into cutting benchmark interest rates.

Analysts expect China to deliver tax and fee cuts of 2 trillion yuan in 2019, versus last year’s 1.3 trillion yuan and let local governments issue 2 trillion yuan in off-budget special bonds to fund key projects, up from 1.35 trillion yuan.

But the economy may not get a quick boost as the raft of policy measures may take time to kick in, and China’s high debt levels and falling investment returns could slow down spending.

New tax cuts, including lowering the valued-added tax (VAT) for firms, could give small and private firms a shot. The finance ministry has pledged a 5 percent cut in “general government spending.”(SD-Agencies)