China's central bank put the country's economic growth at above
10 percent this year in a currency policy report for the third
quarter released Tuesday.
The report predicts that the consumer price index (CPI) for the
whole year would stand at around 1.5 percent.
China's economy grew 10.7 percent in the first three quarters
and the CPI was 1.3 percent. The economy would continue its strong
momentum in the fourth quarter, says the report.
The central bank predicts that China's economic growth may
slowdown due to the macro-control policies and global economic
environment. It continues to say, however, the economy would
develop fast and steadily as the driving force remains strong.
The central bank warned that the slowdown of fixed assets
investment and bank loans in the third quarter is unstable and
China still suffered imbalance in international payments. Inflation
pressure is still there and such issues as energy saving and
pollution prevention have remained to be resolved.
According to the report, the central bank would continue its
prudent currency policy and put loan increases under reasonable
control.
Meanwhile, it would take comprehensive measures to speed up
economic structural adjustment and carry out policies enlarging
domestic demand.
At the beginning of the year, the Chinese government set the
goal of 8 percent for this year's economic growth and 3 percent for
CPI.
China's economy has been growing at around 10 percent for three
continuous years.
Central bank: China faces inflation
pressures
China's central bank said Tuesday that inflation pressures still
exist despite lower consumer price index (CPI) in the first three
quarters. Prices for both consumer goods and production materials
have risks of going up in the future.
China's CPI rose 1.3 percent in the first nine months which is
0.7 percent lower than the same period last year.
The central bank said China's consumer goods would be in oversupply
in the future. However, as China speeds up its pricing reform on
energy products the costs for water, electricity, oil and gas would
continue to be raised.
Price hikes of crude oil and non-ferrous metal in the
international market would push the prices of related products up,
says the report.
Stricter requirement on safe production and social security
would increase costs of companies and the strong momentum of
investment would bring more pressures for price rises, the report
adds.
A survey by the central bank in the third quarter shows
that 44.2 percent of urban depositors expect price levels to rise
by 6.8 percentage points higher than the figure in the second
quarter.
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)