Mar. 5 – Amid growing concerns that all may not be well with the Chinese economy, Beijing confidently predicted another year of rapid expansion while simultaneously vowing to take steps in preventing a bubble forming within one of the fastest growing global economies. If China hopes to tackle this problem, China will need to both calm inflation and curtail runaway loan growth.
In his annual address to open parliament in Beijing this week, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao also pledged to help ensure that the benefits China’s growth are shared more equitably among the country’s 1.3 billion people, in a sign of concern over a widening wealth gap and its potential to spark unrest.
Wen said China would target eight percent economic growth in 2010, which he called a “crucial year” in the battle against the global slowdown.
“This year the main targets we have set for economic and social development are increasing GDP by approximately eight percent… (and) holding the rise in consumer prices to around three percent,” Wen told delegates.
Despite the recent global economic troubles, China’s economy grew 8.7 percent last year. Much of that growth, however, was fuelled by the country’s 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package, with up to 30 percent of that resulting in bad debt, according to some analysts.
“This is a crucial year for continuing to deal with the global financial crisis, maintaining steady and rapid economic development and accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development,” Wen said during his speech.
“We must always remember that developing the economy is inseparable from improving peoples’ well-being and safeguarding social fairness and justice,” he added.
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