"There are already signs of recovery, including rebound of consumption, investment and some product prices," said Zhang, head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Whether those signs were good enough is yet to judge, Zhang said, pledging flexibility and prudence in macro-control.

China announced the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package in November, shifting from a tight monetary policy to a moderately easy one while starting to take a proactive fiscal policy to tackle global downturn.

Some of the current economic data has reflected signs of a turnaround, showing the monetary policy is beginning to take effect, said Zhou.

He told the press the central bank would rather "act faster and take more forceful measures" to shore up confidence.

Figures from the People's Bank of China showed new loans in January amounted to 1.62 trillion yuan, an increment of 814.1 billion yuan, or 103.6 percent, on the same month of 2008.

The increase in January new loans was "out of our expectation", said Zhou, acknowledging the policy might lead to mushrooming in total currency supply and lending.

He noted the central bank could fine-tune the monetary policy to keep credit supply in a reasonable range.

(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2009)