Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the foundations of a growth rebound aren’t solid while cautioning that stimulus won’t help resolve deep-rooted issues in the world’s second-largest economy.

“The foundation of an economic recovery is not solid yet with many uncertain factors,” Li said in a speech Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China. The nation is taking steps to stabilize growth and can achieve the main economic targets this year, Li said.

Policy makers have signaled they will defend a 7.5 percent expansion goal for 2013 and seek to ensure a pace of 7 percent in the coming years. Li pledged reforms that will ripple throughout the financial system as Communist Party leaders prepare for a November meeting to lay out a blueprint for sustaining long-term growth.

“An important part of economic-system reform is financial reform,” Li said in a question-and-answer session after the speech. “It is because it is such a complicated systematic project, it indicates China’s reform has entered a deep-water zone, or the most difficult phase.”

Li reiterated that China will push forward interest-rate and exchange-rate reforms and the internationalization of the yuan while promoting the currency’s convertibility under the capital account.

Government data on Tuesday showed industrial production and aggregate financing, the nation’s broadest measure of new credit, rose more than estimated in August, in a sign leaders are committed to meeting economic goals even at the cost of adding financial risks. The government has used measures from tax cuts to extra spending on railways to respond to a growth slowdown. (Bloomberg)