BEIJING - The Chinese economy has shown positive signs of stabilizing but it's hard to judge what it will be next year, governor of China's central bank said Thursday.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), made the remarks on a panel discussion with delegates from the financial sector to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which opened here Thursday morning.

China's economic momentum will depend on not only domestic conditions, but also changes brought by the global financial crisis, said Zhou, who is also a CPC delegate to the national congress.

"It has become increasingly clear that the Chinese economy is now moving towards a better direction," he said.

Due to the impact of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, China's economy began slowing this year. The Chinese economy expanded only 7.4 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2012, marking a downturn for seven straight quarters, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

As the government adopted a series of fiscal and monetary measures and accelerated the approvals of investment projects to spur the slowing economy, the domestic economy has stabilized since September with better indicators, Zhou said.

He said it's hard to judge how the global financial crisis will continue to affect the Chinese economy, because the spreading of the European debt crisis and the so-called "fiscal cliff" problem in the United States have increased uncertainties of the world economy.

"We need to monitor the effect on our economy of the monetary easing policies launched recently by the United States and the European Union," he said.

China is likely to maintain the policy continuity "to some extent" in 2013, but will leave "ample room" to make the policy targeted and flexible.

The CPC Central Committee will set the tone for the economy at an economic work conference scheduled to convene at the end of this year.