Steady and relatively fast growth in China is in itself an important contribution to international financial stability and world economic growth, a point Chinese leaders have stressed on various occasions to catch the attention of a world desperately seeking a way to dispel the fears of a deeper crisis.

Indeed, China has mustered unprecedented courage and strength during the past month to keep its pledges.

Following the November 9 announcement of a massive 4-trillion-yuan (US$586 billion) fiscal stimulus package, China slashed the benchmark one-year lending and deposit rates by 108 basis points on November 27, the sharpest since 1997 when the Asian financial crisis broke out and the fourth reduction since September.

Then China's State Council issued a raft of new measures last week to revive the slowing economy, including 100 billion yuan in additional loans to boost key industries such as agriculture, foreign trade and important infrastructure projects.

The annual Central Economic Work Conference, which runs from today till Wednesday, will also tackle ways to implement an "expansionary" policy, having switched in October from a tight macroeconomic stance to counter the spreading global financial crisis.

People familiar with the conference, which usually sets the tone for next year's policy direction, have revealed that China's top economic decision makers have set the target for next year's growth at above 8 percent, a figure widely believed to be the minimum growth rate that China needs to absorb the millions of people entering the workforce.

The target was in line with the forecast by some financial institutions and economists, but fell short of the World Bank's more pessimistic prediction of 7.5 percent, the slowest since 1990.

"Over the past year, the impact of the international financial turmoil on China's economy has been manageable because China has modest exposure to subprime assets and because of the capital controls imposed by the authorities," said the bank in its latest China Quarterly Update.

"However, the economic impact in China of the international turmoil is set to intensify because of the prospects of a sharp reduction in export growth as the impact of the international turmoil deepens in the United States and Europe and it starts to hit demand in many emerging markets."

China's export growth eased to 19.2 percent year on year to US$128.3 billion in October, down from a rise of 21.5 percent in September and 21.1 percent in August.

In the view of the World Bank, although China's export growth was still standing at a reasonably good level, it would weaken next year and recent indicators in export orders from the purchasing managers' index, or PMI, show this trend.