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Lan Fo'an, China's finance minister, center, speaks as Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), left, and Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), listen during a news conference on the sidelines of the National People's Congress in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, March 6, 2024.

BEIJING — China's Minister of Finance Lan Fo'an told reporters Saturday during a highly anticipated press briefing that the central government has room to increase debt and the deficit.

He emphasized that the space for a deficit increase is "rather large," but noted such policies are still under discussion, according to CNBC's translation of the Chinese.

Economists have insisted that China needs additional fiscal support, but Beijing has yet to announce any. In the days leading up to the briefing, many investors and analysts had hoped that China was gearing up to unveil a major new stimulus package.

Lan signaled that the weekend briefing was not the end, that more stimulus is on the way and that the debt or deficit changes markets have been waiting for could come in the near future. It remains unclear whether the size of any such stimulus would meet market expectations, or how much would go directly towards consumption or real estate.

"These policies are in the right direction," Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said in a note Saturday. He added that more details are needed to evaluate the impact of such policies on the macro outlook, and "this will be the focus of the market in [the] coming months."

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