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)