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GDP predicted to grow at 8-9% in '04: Statistician

BEIJING - A senior statistician has predicted that China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the whole year of 2004 is expected to reach 8-9%, surpassing the 7% target set at the beginning of the year.

Yao Jingyuan, chief economist and spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said at a forum on competitiveness of China here on Monday that a definite time could not be given as to how long the current round of macro-economic control starting from the spring of this year would last. It depends on when the macro-control targets will be achieved, he said.

The targets of the on-going macro economic control are to solve the abnormal factors in the national economy so as to achieve sustainable steady economic growth, he added.

Earlier, the government has made great efforts to rein in investment overheating in steel, electrolytic aluminum and cement industries.

China's economy grew 9.7% in the first half of this year, 0.9 percentage points higher than in the same period of last year.

China's GDP in 2003 grew 9.1% to 11.669 trillion yuan (about US$1.4 trillion), the highest growth since 1997, driven mainly by surges in capital investment.

(Asia Pulse/XIC)

Sep 29, 2004

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