The central bank said yesterday that it would focus on control of liquidity as one of its major tasks this year and keep the growth of the broad measure of money supply at about 16 percent.

The target for M2 growth is one percentage point less than last year's actual figure, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on its website.

But there is a caveat: the gross domestic product (GDP) grows by about 8 percent and the consumer price index rises by about 3 percent, it said.