Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, whose market reforms helped drive the country’s extraordinary economic rise, died yesterday at the age of 97.

Zhu became premier in 1998 and swiftly lived up to his reputation as a hard-hitting free marketeer.

Among his best-known reforms were a broad programme to privatise unprofitable state-owned enterprises, the privatisation of urban housing and the promotion of home ownership.

He passed away from illness in Beijing in the morning, “after medical treatment failed to save him”, state news agency Xinhua said.

Reforms under Zhu sparked a boom in real estate and construction, which would soar to become a quarter of China’s economy before a crippling debt crisis struck in 2020.

His leadership was credited with helping China avoid the worst of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, bucking a global trend.