China might take ''extraordinary measures'' to boost its economy beyond a $US580billion ($A913.5billion) economic stimulus plan announced late last year, Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday.
''We may take further new, timely and decisive measures. All these measures have to be taken pre-emptively before an economic retreat,'' he told London's Financial Times business daily in an interview published yesterday.
In November, China unveiled a spending package worth four trillion yuan ($A913.5billion) by the end of 2010. It was aimed at boosting domestic consumption amid slackening overseas demand for China's manufactured goods.
''We must take forceful steps. Under special circumstances, necessary and extraordinary measures are required,'' Mr Wen said.
''We should not be restricted by conventions. Success or failure depends on the pace and intensity of those measures.''
He said the Government would do whatever was necessary to maintain growth ''about 8 per cent'' this year, including possibly using foreign reserves.
The 8 per cent growth target, announced by Mr Wen last week, is traditionally set as the minimum needed to create enough jobs and prevent social unrest.
China's economy grew 9 per cent last year, slipping back into single digits for the first time in six years as the global crisis took its toll, the Government said last month.
Mr Wen was due to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in London, yesterday on the final leg of a European tour that has taken in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as well as Berlin, Brussels and Madrid.
In the interview, Mr Wen repeated his defence of the yuan exchange rate against US accusations that China was manipulating its currency to boost exports, saying it intended to keep it stable at a ''balanced and reasonable level''.
''If we have a drastic fluctuation in the exchange rate of the renminbi [yuan], it would be a big disaster,'' he said.
Mr Wen also said his Government planned to inject $A47.3billion into the Agricultural Bank of China, up from a previously announced $A29.9billion.
''The China Agricultural Bank is the last among five national banks which is now undertaking a banking reform ... our decision for this recapitalisation is around $US30billion dollars,'' Mr Wen said.
The Agricultural Bank, China's weakest major lender, has been in the process of restructuring for years, as policy makers have tried to make it fit for a stock listing.
This would follow the example of other major Chinese state banks whose initial public offerings were among the largest the world had seen.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Government says about 20 million rural migrants cannot find work because of the economic crisis.
The figure marked a three-fold increase from previous numbers issued by the Government last month, indicating the slowdown in the world's third-biggest economy was accelerating and thousands more factories had closed.
A senior rural planning official, Chen Xiwen said, ''Due to the economic downturn, about 20 million rural workers have either lost their jobs or have not yet found employment and have gone home to the countryside.
''After returning to their village, what do they do about revenue? About their lives? This is a new factor impacting this year's social stability.''
China's communist leaders have long been concerned about the potential for social unrest among its 800 million people who live in the nation's poor countryside. AFP