China has set a timetable for improving oversight of the ballooning shadow banking sector and will implement Basel III requirements, Premier Li Keqiang said.

Basel III is a global, voluntary regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and market liquidity risk.

Li was asked by a banker during the annual two sessions, "Isn't the current capital adequacy ratio too high?", and replied, "We don't want to let today's stepping stone become tomorrow's stumbling block."

Asked whether he would like to see some individual cases of default, Li responded, "How could I possibly want to see that? But I'm afraid sometimes certain individual cases of defaults are unavoidable. What we should do is to step up monitoring, properly handle relevant matters and ensure there is no regional and systemic financial risk."