BEIJING - China will maintain its prudent monetary policy and proactive fiscal policy next year, but fine-tune these policies as conditions change, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced on Friday.

At the meeting chaired by President Hu Jintao, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, it was agreed that the country will make its policy responses more targeted, flexible and forward-looking next year.

The country also pledges to maintain control over the intensity, pace and focus of macroeconomic regulation and preset or fine tune policies in light of changes in economic development, according to a statement issued after the meeting.

At the meeting it was agreed that China will continue to balance efforts to "ensure stable and relatively fast economic growth, while adjusting the economic structure and regulating inflationary expectations next year."

The statement said the country will maintain its unswerving stance on the regulation of the property market next year to make the housing prices return to a reasonable level.

Efforts to accelerate the transformation of economic development and adjust the economic structure should be made, while also working to boost domestic demand and ensure stable and relatively fast economic growth while maintaining the stability of consumer prices, according to the statement.

The meeting came ahead of an annual economic work conference, one of the nation's most important economic events, which will set economic policy guidelines for the coming year.

"To better deal with the economic work of next year will be of great importance to ensure sound economic and social development momentum and build a good environment for the opening of the CPC's 18th national congress," the statement said.

Efforts should also be made to increase the incomes of middle- and lower-income groups, optimizing investment structure, boosting agriculture production, expanding imports and pushing forward reforms in key sectors, it said.

Last December, the committee said the nation would switch its monetary policy stance from "moderately loose" to "prudent" to tackle rising inflation and keep economic growth at a sustainable pace.

For more than a year, China has been squeezing its banking system in efforts to rein in high inflation. However, the country's central bank this week cut the amount of cash that lenders have to set aside as reserves for the first time in three years, which economists said was aimed to aid growth in the world's second-largest economy.

China's economic growth has been slowing all year. Its GDP growth slowed to 9.1 percent in the third quarter from 9.5 percent in the second quarter, and 9.7 percent in the first quarter.

Growth of the consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of the country's inflation, eased to 4.2 percent in November from this year's peak of 6.5 percent in July. It was the slowest pace since last September when it rose 3.6 percent.

However, even with the sharp fall in November, the country's CPI rose 5.5 percent year-on-year in January-November, well above the government's full-year inflation control target of 4 percent.

The maintained monetary policy stance for next year indicates the policy makers' wariness about a recurrence of inflation spiral amid increasing uncertainties outside the country, said Wang Jinbin, deputy dean at the School of Economics at Renmin University.

At a separate meeting, which President Hu chaired on Monday to solicit opinions on economic work from non-CPC party personages, the president warned that the country's economic development still contains unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable strains, and the country will accelerate the transformation of economic development pattern more actively.

Hu said the key for next year's economic work was to better coordinate efforts on stabilizing growth, restructuring the economy, improving people's livelihoods and ensuring stability.

Non-CPC party personages, including Zhou Tienong, chairman of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, and Jiang Shusheng, chairman of the China Democratic League, spoke at the meeting. They made suggestions on issues including development of medium-small- and micro-sized firms, reforms of fiscal and taxation systems and property market regulation.