Zhou Xiaochuan (center), head of People's Bank of China, and Yi Gang (second from left), head of State Administration of Foreign Exchange, take questions from journalists from home and abroad during a press conference on March 12, 2015. [Jiang Xueqing / chinadaily.com.cn]

The National Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday that industrial output growth year-on-year dropped to 6.8 percent in January and February, from 7.9 percent in December, with retail sales growth slowing to 10.7 percent from 11.9 percent in December.

Fix-asset investment growth also fell to 13.9 percent in the first two months, led by the slowdown in manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

"To offset the headwinds to economic growth, we now expect monetary policy to be loosened even further," said Zhao Yang, China chief economist of Nomura, in a note on Thursday. The financial institution projects three more rate cuts this year, each by 25bp, and three 50 bp cuts to reserve requirement ratio.