Following a slew of figures released this week showing growth in the world's fourth largest economy was continuing to slow, senior government officials sought to reassure the world that China could weather the storm.

"The origin of the financial crisis is outside the country and its impact on our financial system is limited. The fundamentals of our economy are still good," National Development and Reform Commission vice chairman Mu Hong said.

The comments came as Chinese President Hu Jintao prepared to attend a weekend summit in the United States of the world's 20 richest economies and emerging heavyweights on how to deal with the crisis.

Mu pointed to China's newly announced stimulus package worth four trillion yuan (586 billion dollars) as proof of the government's commitment to keeping the economy growing swiftly, and therefore helping the rest of the world.

"I think the central government's decision to make significant changes to economic policy ... showed its firm determination and confidence in stabilising the economy and maintaining fast growth," he said.

Nevertheless, Mu acknowledged that China faced a huge challenge in dealing with the global meltdown.

"Faced with today's severe domestic and overseas situation, whether we can prevent too sharp an economic slowdown and too sharp a swing will be a serious challenge for us," he said.

China's economic growth slipped to 9.0 percent in the third quarter, its slowest pace in five years, and data for October released this week indicated the deceleration was continuing.

Industrial production grew 8.2 percent in October from the corresponding month a year ago compared with 11.4 percent in September.

Inflation also fell to a 17-month low of 4.0 percent in October, down from 4.6 percent in September and a 12-year high of 8.7 percent in February, bringing deflation on to the government's radar.

Speaking at the same briefing on China's response to the financial crisis, central bank vice governor Yi Gang said the nation's banking system had plenty of money, indicating few concerns about a US-style credit crunch.

"The liquidity in China's financial market is generally abundant," Yi said.

Yi also said China was not about to panic and sell its enormous US assets, which were gained in recent years via its world-largest foreign exchange reserves and have depreciated sharply during the crisis.

"China inevitably has to invest its forex reserves in the overseas market and we are very responsible about our forex investment," Yi said when asked about investing in US financial assets.

"We will deal with the current financial tsunami in a responsible and steady manner... this responsible and steady attitude, instead of the attitude of selling off in a panic, will benefit the overall financial market."

With world leaders looking for China's help at the G20 meeting, Yi reiterated the government's position that ensuring continued economic growth at home was the biggest contribution it could make to combating the global crisis.

"A stable Chinese economy and stable Chinese financial and capital markets in themselves are already the biggest alleviation and contribution to (solving) the world financial crisis," he said.

Robert Subbaraman, a Hong Kong-based economist with Nomura investment firm, agreed China's economy was still sound.

"But at the same time, I think China is still very much a developing economy and it needs to continue with rapid growth or it can lead to big problems such as unemployment," he said.

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