The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said that its chairman Liu Mingkang has forecasted China's economic growth to be at around eight percent in 2009, not the 6.54 percent as wrongly reported by some news media over the weekend.

The information office of the CBRC said Sunday night that Liu made the forecast at the annual meeting of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Beijing on June 12.

According to Liu's speech at the meeting, which has been posted on the CBRC's website, China's domestic demand has been recovering steadily and credit growth remaining high, indicating that the series of economic stimulus plans have paid off.

Liu said that China's banking industry has been performing quite well. By the end of April, the total asset of the industry had exceeded 70.5 trillion yuan (10.37 trillion U.S. dollars). At the end of the first quarter, 208 commercial banks met the capital adequacy requirement, accounting for 98 percent of all commercial banks, and non-performing loans had been falling steadily.

He said that China's economy still faces severe challenges, including a sluggish domestic and overseas demand, falling prices, rising unemployment, and unstable international economic and financial situation.

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2009)