Osborne's criteria for a successful economy

As he sought to shift the focus from spending cuts to the need to promote economic growth, he promised to get the country "back on its feet" with a "new economic model".

A Conservative administration would usher in an economy based on long-term saving and investment, and support a private sector recovery driven by exports and enterprise, Mr Osborne said.

He announced a new Green Investment Bank to help create jobs in the low carbon industry and reduce emissions.

The public would be able to hold him and Tory leader David Cameron to account against eight "clear and transparent" benchmarks, he said.

The first addressed the need to reduce Britain's record 178bn budget deficit in order to safeguard the UK's credit rating.

But – following Labour accusations that the Tories have softened their stance in recent days – it contained little detail about early action on spending cuts.

"We will set out a plan in our first budget to eliminate a large part of the structural deficit in the first parliament," he said in a speech. "We will make a start in 2010. The pace of fiscal consolidation will be coordinated with monetary policy."

The benchmarks on economic growth included safeguarding the UK's international credit rating and creating the conditions for higher exports, business investment and saving as a share of GDP. Raising the private sector's share of the economy and productivity growth in the public sector were also named.

Mr Osborne said: "These are the benchmarks for Britain. Benchmarks that will guide the next Conservative government as we build a new, more stable, more balanced economy.

"They mean more jobs, more savings, more enterprise. Borrowing from China so that we can buy the goods they make for us may be Gordon Brown's idea of the future, but it is not ours. We want Britain to be selling to China and the world."