China top leaders say to keep policy unchanged: Xinhua

[BEIJING] China is sticking to its current fiscal and monetary policy settings, the state news agency quoted top leaders as saying on Friday.

The Xinhua news agency quoted leaders of the Communist Party of China as saying after a meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping that economic growth in the first quarter was stable and within a "proper range".

Growth in the world's second-largest economy cooled to an 18-month low of 7.4 per cent between January and March, fuelling speculation that the government may loosen policy to bolster activity.

But officials have only eased policy at the margins and in measured steps, such as reducing the reserve requirement ratio, or the amount of cash that banks keep at the central bank, for just the smallest banks.