China's top economic planner: 'hard landing' impossible

China will avoid the kind of hard landing predicted by the likes of billionaire investor George Soros as policy makers still have enough tools to maintain reasonable growth as they seek to overhaul the world's second-largest economy, the country's top economic planner said.

Xu Shaoshi, who heads the National Development and Reform Commission, said the economy's speed change, structure optimisation and gear shift were all smooth, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Asian nation's economy will expand by at least 6.5 percent annually for the next five years, after growth of 6.9 percent last year, the slowest pace in a quarter century.

On Saturday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang released the annual government work report - a blueprint of China's economic aspirations - which projected a growth target between 6.5 percent to 7 percent in 2016.

Citing the global market turmoil in early February during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, Xu said that blaming China for global investment jitters was "unreasonable and unfounded".

Nonetheless, the broader world economy poses challenges to China this year, Xu said. "We are confident of achieving that end".

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"We can expect genuine progress in railway construction and industrial capacity transfer", Xu said. Mainland China will cut steel production by 100 million to 150 million tons over five years and another 500 million tons in coal production in three to five years.

Meanwhile, the government is under pressure to find white collar jobs for the record 7.7 million students graduating from China's colleges and universities this year. "Therefore uncertainties and unstable factors in the global economic environment continue to exist", said Xu.

The body known as the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection rarely explains its methodology or what evidence it considers, and no other details were given in the brief statement posted on its website.

He added that plans to reduce industrial overcapacity are unlikely to result in large-scale layoffs, promising that economic growth will create more jobs and help offset the impact of restructuring of bloated industries.

Hundreds of thousands of officials have been interviewed in the campaign, but only a small number have been identified.