Premier Wen Jiabao urged more efforts to maintain relatively fast economic growth as the world's second-largest economy has shown signs of further slowing.

"The country should properly handle the relationship between maintaining growth, adjusting economic structures and managing inflationary expectations," Wen said during an inspection tour to Wuhan, capital city of central China's Hubei Province, from Friday to Sunday.

"We should continue to implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, while giving more priority to maintaining growth," Wen said.

He said the central government will continue to strengthen and improve macro control efforts, carry out timely and appropriate anticipatory adjustments and fine-tuning, boost domestic consumption and stabilize external demand to promote steady and relatively fast economic growth.

During his tour, Wen visited several local enterprises and exchanged views with company representatives.

When he learned that Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp. had introduced a series of measures to secure profits, including lowering costs and adjusting its product portfolio, Wen said the company should also eliminate out-of-date capacity, curb overcapacity and enhance its ability to self-innovate in order to expand its market share.

When told that exports of Accelink Technologies Co., the country's largest maker of photoelectric communication devices, jumped more than 40 percent year-on-year during the first four months, Wen said a farsighted company head should focus on technological innovation.

He also encouraged Accelink Technologies to create self-developed brands to raise its competitiveness.

However, some local companies faced difficult business conditions due to weakening demand in developed economies and rising costs at home.

Liu Cunyuan, general manager of Wuhan Haier Electronics Co., said the country's home appliance sales fell by about 13 percent year-on-year during the first quarter of 2012, as the nation's home appliance subsidy scheme ended.

Zhu Fushou, general manager of Dongfeng Automobile Co., said that auto companies will see slow sales growth in the long run, despite reporting good results for the first four months.

Wen called on entrepreneurs to remain confident in the face of difficulties, encouraging them to explore new markets and raise their companies' adaptability and competitiveness.

During his visit to a local career fair on Saturday morning, Wen vowed to increase financial input to provide more training for college students and employees.

Meanwhile, he said the government will continue to implement structural tax reductions to ease companies' financial burdens.

The nation will further make its fiscal and monetary policies more targeted and flexible, optimize its credit structure and increase credit support to small and micro-sized enterprises, according to Wen.

More efforts should be made to boost domestic demand to drive growth, he said, adding that local governments should continue to provide preferential policies to farmers in order to promote agricultural production.

Wen also asked local authorities to carry out property tightening measures and increase affordable housing for low-income earners to ensure a healthy property market.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2012)