China's macro policy formulation and implementation, catering to the needs of market entities, stabilized the country's economic fundamentals, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday.

Li made the remarks at a high-level virtual dialogue with European business leaders in Beijing and exchanged views with other participants on topics of common concern, including China-EU trade and investment cooperation, China's business environment, fight against COVID-19 and climate change.

Former European Commissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson and heads of nearly 30 prominent European companies including Volvo, Airbus, JCDecaux, AstraZeneca, L'Oreal, BASF and SAP were among those in attendance.

Li said the Chinese government adopted effective macro policies in a timely and decisive manner and garnered bumper results at a reasonable price, as COVID-19 nudged the global economy into a downturn. 

The world's second largest economy garnered a 2.3 percent gain in terms of economic output last year, becoming the only major economy to experience positive growth for the full year, while others are still grappling with the drawn-out pandemic. 

China catered to market entities' needs to tide over difficulties. From the central government to the local counterparts, the country settled on targeted assistance, such as staged large-scale tax cuts and fee reductions, to lend a hand to market entities, according to Li. 

"China reduced the corporate burden by over 2.5 trillion yuan (about $352 billion) throughout the year, especially the widespread micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as self-employed businesses, which bore the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic."

"On the other hand, China ramped up efforts to optimize the business environment, stimulate market vitality, simplify business registration procedures and provide equitable measures for protecting fair competition," Li said. 

In the second half of 2020, all sorts of market entities in China amounted to 130 million and new market players brisked up. Additional tax to the tune of 2.5 trillion yuan was collected last year. 

Because China has stabilized hundreds of millions of market entities, it's capable of stabilizing employment, protecting people's livelihood, and stabilizing the economic fundamentals, Li added. 

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