China is moving to make its economic growth more balanced and avoid asset bubbles.<br /><br /> It plans to do that by ensuring companies don’t build up too much debt and by further cutting excess coal and steel capacity.<br /><br /> Political obsession with meeting official growth targets has led to years of debt-fuelled stimulus, but now there are fears of a banking crisis or sharply slower growth or both.<br /><br /> Xu Shaoshi, the head of China’s state planning agency, known as the National Development and Reform Commission, said: “The first goal is to reduce debt in an effective and orderly way with companies responding to market forces. The second goal, is to limit the debt of non-financial firms, which must never rise beyond the current levels.”<br /><br /> He said the world’s second-largest economy faces increasing uncertainties in 2017 following speculative growth last year in the housing, commodities and debt markets. <br /><br /> China’s leaders are aware that putting on the brakes too quickly could stall economic momentum.<br /><br /> They’re struggling to strike a balance between supporting the economy with ample credit and slowly trying to defuse the risks posed by the rapid debt build-up.<br />
