China affirms meeting 8pc target
(30/06/2009)
China's economy is showing signs of stabilizing and can achieve its target of 8 percent growth this year, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said yesterday.
Asked at a Hong Kong news conference about the GDP target, Zhou said: "Overall in the second quarter people think it is stabilizing and better than the first quarter.
"If there is no major issue internationally, China's [economy] should be better in the third and fourth quarters. In this situation, [the Chinese economy] could reach its earlier set target."
Premier Wen Jiabao also said that the economy was improving, but added that the country needed to focus its efforts on safeguarding economic growth.
"China is now at a critical moment in dealing with the global financial crisis. The overall economy is stabilizing and improving, but the foundations are still not solid," state radio paraphrased Wen as saying.
"There are many uncertain factors. We cannot relax [our efforts] at all," Wen told local officials and company executives during a trip to the eastern province of Shandong.
Beijing has targeted 8 percent growth this year, which is seen as the minimum level required to create sufficient jobs and ward off possible social unrest.
The World Bank has forecast the Chinese economy will expand 7.2 percent this year and 7.7 percent in 2010.
In neighboring Japan, industrial output jumped 5.9 percent in May as car and electronics production pulled out of a deep slump, although an inventory build up in some sectors suggested the rebound would soon lose momentum.
Manufacturers forecast output growth to slow to 3.1 percent in June and to just 0.9 percent in July amid an absence of a convincing global recovery.
But the Bank of Japan's tankan business survey due out tomorrow is likely to show the mood among big Japanese manufacturers improving from record lows a quarter ago.
The central bank's deputy governor Hirohide Yamaguchi said Japan is not in a deflationary spiral and BoJ expects falls in consumer prices to moderate after the summer. Data last week showed Japanese consumer prices fell a record 1.1 percent in the year to May
REUTERS
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