China's economic leaders said today that they see signs of recovery, but vowed to act "quickly and decisively" if further help for the world's third-largest economy was needed.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the central bank, said he believed the economy was "stabilising and recovering" in the face of the global economic crisis. The chair of the country's top economic planning body reiterated that there were no plans to top up the country's 4 trillion yuan (£4bn) stimulus package, with officials waiting to see what is necessary.

World stockmarkets fell yesterday, and kept falling in Asia today, as anticipation of a top-up announcement at the National People's Congress proved premature. "The policies (to date) have achieved significant results," Zhou told a news conference on the sidelines of the NPC, the largely ceremonial parliament.

The governor added: "We are also seeing that the economic figures are stabilising and recovering, which demonstrates that the policies have begun to show an impact."

But he added: "In particular, we have to prevent being too slow-handed or light-handed in responding. We must err on the side of being quick and decisive."

Zhou added that China had learned the lesson from other countries that moving too late can make it harder to restore confidence. Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, added: "Some numbers are showing signs of containing the downturn or of revival.

"Of course, we can't complacently assume that we can entirely avoid the impact of the crisis or that our measures are already enough to counter it."

But he said that China could be confident of overcoming the problems because in the long term its economic conditions were "not fundamentally different".

Yesterday, Premier Wen Jiabao announced that government spending would grow by 24% this year as it aims for its 8% growth target - thought to be the minimum level needed to hold down unemployment. Outside analysts suggest that growth could be closer to 6%.

Optimists point to the rapid increase in bank loans - which shot up to a record 1.6 trillion yuan in January, and are expected to have exceeded 800bn yuan last month - as one sign of a potential recovery.

There are also promising signs in Chinese manufacturing. The Purchasing Managers Index reached 49 in February, just short of the boundary between contraction and expansion, while output and new orders grew slightly after shrinking for four months.

But Arthur Kroeber, head of the Beijing economic consultancy Dragonomics, said talk of recovery was premature.

"We know that a lot of money has been pumped into the economy and we know there's been a slowdown in some of the signs of deterioration. A couple of indicators that were extremely negative have become slightly less negative. That's not a recovery, but a slowdown of the rate at which things are getting worse.

"My personal opinion is that we will start to get evidence of a little bit of fiscal bounce in the next couple of months, but we don't have it now."

The 21st Century Business Herald reported today that China's exports and imports both dropped by more than 20% in February, citing an unnamed official. The official said that meant the trade surplus could have fallen to $7bn, from $39.1bn surplus in January.

If correct, those figures would mark an acceleration in export decline and the fourth straight monthly decline for both exports and imports. Exports fell 17.5% and imports fell 43.1% in January.

Earlier on Friday, the central bank said in a statement that it would let market forces play a greater role in determining interest rates and was considering allowing commercial banks to charge less for loans.