Aim to stable and relatively fast growth
The country’s top leadership guaranteed the taking steps to ensure a “stable and relatively fast” economic growth next year after the three-day Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) in Beijing on December 10, 2008.
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao addressed at the annual conference that policymakers plan to boost domestic demand and carry out economic restructuring to maintain a sound economic growth amid the deepening global financial crisis.
Under the worsening global economic situation, the World Bank was forced to cut its growth forecast for the world economy from 1 percent to 0.9 percent next year. And the global trade volume would decrease by 2.1 percent, it said.
To tackle the crisis, the government has put creation of jobs and improving people’s livelihood on top of its agenda, the CEWC said. A China Central Television (CCTV) report said the government would increase its spending on rural development, education, services, healthcare, social security, job creation, environmental protection and technological innovation.
To boost domestic demand and minimize the impact of the crisis, last month the government announced a $586-billion stimulus package on November 9th and cut down the interest rate by 1.08 percentage points, the highest in 11 years.
While maintaining its proactive fiscal policy and moderately relaxed monetary policy, the country will implement a “flexible and careful” macroeconomic regulation to ensure that the economy achieves positive progress next year, the conference said.
The country will aim for a “stable and healthy” development of the capital and real estate markets after its major stock indices have fallen by more than two-thirds since late last year and property sales dropped dramatically in some cities, it said.
The top leadership expressed confidence in bolstering economic growth, saying the country has been able to minimize the impact of the global financial crisis.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Premier Wen told the CEWC, quoting former US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words during the Great Depression, according to sources. “China has the ability to overcome difficulties,” Wen said.
Analysts widely expect the government to set an 8 percent GDP growth target for next year.
This is somewhere between the World Bank’s prediction of 7.5 percent and the country’s top think tank, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ forecast of 9.3 percent.
Despite the World Bank forecast of 7.5 percent GDP growth for China next year, its chief economist Justin Yifu Lin told Xinhua that the country could manage to achieve an 8 percent growth.
“It would be more realistic to put the growth forecast at 8 percent, given the gloomy global situation and China’s determination to boost its economy,” said Dong Yuping, senior economist with the Institute of Finance and Banking of the social sciences academy. “It will depend on the effect of the country’s stimulus package.”
The conference emphasized that more efforts should be made to “solve problems related to interests of ordinary people, so as to maintain social stability”. And all measures taken will ultimately target improving people’s living standard, they said.
Despite the global financial crisis, important opportunities for China’s economic and social development still exists, participants at the conference said, “It would not be reversed by ongoing global financial woes”.
In this regard, expenditures in public areas will be “substantially increased” and those in major areas guaranteed.
The conference agreed that wide-ranging measures should be taken to improve the social welfare system both in urban and rural areas.
Are you interested in the business opportunities in China?
China is one of the world’s great growth markets and is likely to be for many years to come. Foreign companies often face difficulties in assessing Chinese market demand and enacting effective strategies because of the language barriers, culture differences, and high expense.
BPOVIA is the leading virtual assistant and Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) service provider in China. BPOVIA is the only virtual assistant company ever been nominated for the prestigious “Red Herring 100 Asia” Awards 2008. Combines international perspective with local know-how, BPOVIA can provide our clients China business development service and help our clients doing successful business in China.
Please visit http://www.BPOVIA.com/ for details about our service.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Great article, an interesting topic for more information regarding to improve economy.
Hope to hear more relevant and informative topic. Thanks.
I visited this blog first time and found it very interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing such information.