China on Saturday cut its growth target for this year to a range of 6.5 to seven percent, the text of a speech to be delivered by Premier Li Keqiang showed.

Among the "main development targets" for the world's second-largest economy this year were "GDP growth 6.5 percent to 7 percent", said the text of a speech Li was to give at the opening of the National People's Congress parliament.

The goal had been set at "about seven percent" for 2015, when expansion came in at 6.9 percent, its lowest for a quarter of a century.