BEIJING — China will maintain necessary support for economic recovery and implement targeted structural tax cuts and other measures to consolidate its growth momentum, the country's top economic planner pledged on April 19.

Policies aimed at stabilizing employment and safeguarding market entities will not be trimmed, while measures to support small and micro-enterprises will be fully implemented, said Meng Wei, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission, at a press conference on April 19.

The planner vowed to continue stepping up financial services for market entities, strengthen the market regulation of raw materials, and alleviate corporate cost pressures.

While China's economy has extended an improving trend in the first quarter, increasing uncertainties in the global market and uneven domestic recovery still pose challenges for future development, according to Meng.

China's economy grew 18.3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021, as strong domestic and foreign demand powered recovery from a low base in early 2020 when COVID-19 stalled the world's second-largest economy.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected that the Chinese economy will grow by 8.4 percent in 2021, 0.3 percentage points above the January forecast, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook released in early April.