An economist at a leading investment bank on Wednesday said the main takeaways from the recently concluded Two Sessions was that China was prepared to handle the new round of US tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

During the annual meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC), Premier Li Qiang set a five percent growth target and vowed more support for private enterprises.

Speaking on RTHK's Hong Kong Today programme, Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, told Carol Musgrave that the NPC's emphasis on artificial intelligence development was also significant.

"China has really rebuffed the US pressure, Trump's pressure, on China by maintaining the [growth] target by saying 'tariffs won't hurt me', and also by announcing amazing plans in terms of supporting AI development," she said.

García-Herrero acknowledged that tariffs from the US and other countries would create headwinds for China and could dampen the demand for Chinese exports, but added that Beijing had other policies in its toolbox to meet its economic targets.

"What Premier Li Qiang announced to make this [growth] target credible was to do more stimulus, whether its fiscal, with a larger fiscal deficit from three percent to four percent, but also cutting interest rates."