China's premier says to start fine-tuning policy in Q1-paper

SHANGHAI Feb 13 (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said China will start to fine-tune its economic policy in the first quarter, the official Shanghai Securities News quoted him as saying on Monday, the government's most explicit indication yet of a monetary easing.

However, the government will stick to policy to cool the property market, Wen was quoted telling a government-sponsored meeting to solicit experts' opinion on policy last week.

The market has expected the government to cut bank reserve requirement ratios since mid-December, but the People's Bank of China has refrained from doing so. Wen's comments came as the market has already cooled its expectations of such a central bank move more recently.