Chinese policymakers' indications during this year's two sessions that they will make greater efforts in 2016 to stabilize growth and set a range for the GDP growth target rather than a single number represent strategic moves by the government, a US expert said.

China has set this year's GDP growth target in a range of 6.5 percent to 7 percent, marking the first time in two decades that the nation adopted a range for its growth target rather than a specific number.

This decision was "a bit of a strategic choice" made by the Chinese government, said David Dollar, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution and a former official of the World Bank and the US Treasury Department.

"I think the government wants to signal that it believes growth is stabilizing," Dollar told the Xinhua New Agency in an interview. "They're emphasizing that growth is maybe slowing down a little bit, but it's pretty stable."

While the range is lower than the 2015 target of "about 7 percent," Tamim Bayoumi, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the world has to get used to the fact that China is moving toward "a slower but more stable growth rate," as the country is making the transition to "much more of a consumption-based economy".

This year's budget deficit-to-GDP ratio was raised to 3 percent from 2.3 percent in 2015.

Dollar praised the Chinese government for the tax cuts and expenditure increases in the health and education sectors that were announced in the Government Work Report released on March 5. He said that fiscal policy is very effective in revving up slowing economic growth. 

Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, recommended that China rely more on fiscal policy to support growth during its "difficult" transition.

"Unlike monetary easing, which works by lowering domestic interest rates, fiscal policy can support aggregate demand and near-term growth without creating an incentive for capital to flow out of the country," he said Wednesday in a blog post.

Dollar also noted that supply-side structural reforms are essential if China wants to continue growing well. He said he was particularly impressed by the announcement of accelerated hukou (household registration) reform and the opening-up of more services sectors to foreign investment.