Economic Growth to Be Faster Than Last Year: Official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, July 16, 2002

Economic Growth to Be Faster Than Last Year: Official

China is likely to achieve a faster economic growth this year than the 7.3-percent growth in last year, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Qiu Xiaohua said Monday.

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China is likely to achieve a faster economic growth this year than the 7.3-percent growth in last year, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Qiu Xiaohua said Monday.

He told a press conference this morning that economic growth rate showed a modest rebound over the first half of this year, reversing the slowdown of growth rate for the past two years.

NBS statistics showed the gross domestic product (GDP) grew 8.0percent in the second quarter, comparing with a growth of 7.6 percent in the first quarter. The growth rate for the first half-year was 7.8 percent.

However, Qiu declined to say the economy has stopped losing speed and will grow faster in the latter half of the year.

"The basis for steady and fast growth of the national economy has been reinforced, and the driving forces for further expanding overseas and domestic demands have been enhanced over the first half of the year," he told reporters after the press conference.

He expressed the belief that the economic growth of this year will be higher than in last year.

He said this may prove to be a good news for the world economy in a recovery mood.

"This has become a common sense that the growth of the world economy is beneficial to China and that China's economic growth is in turn beneficial to the world," he said.

He said surging exports after China's accession to the world trade organization (WTO) helped push up economic growth by one percentage point in the first half of the year.

The increasing overseas demand was an indispensable factor for the steady and rapid growth of the economy in the first half of the year, Qiu said.

"It's a breakout in the trend of past few years that both overseas and domestic demands are pushing the economy ahead this year," he said.

NBS statistics showed consumption contributed 3.9 percentage points to the 7.8-percent growth of the economy in the first half year, investment contributed some 3.0 percentage points, and exports nearly 1 percentage point.

China's GDP grew to 4,553.6 billion yuan (551 billion US dollars) in the first half of this year.

The achievement has laid a sound foundation for realizing the goal for a 7-percent economic growth for the whole of this year, Qiu said.

However, he pointed out that the economy still has some problems, including slower growth of fiscal revenue, dropping consumer price index, unemployment, lackluster consumption in rural areas and frequent occurrence of accidents causing huge casualties.

He said as long as the country continues to carry out the government's macro-economic policy and promote market demand through economic restructuring, the economy will maintain a fast and steady growth for the whole year.

NBS figures showed China's grain production this summer declined 2.9 percent from the same season last year, affected by spring drought and flooding. Total summer grain output amounted to98.75 million tons.

China's fixed assets investment in the first half of this year amounted to 1,446.2 billion yuan (175 billion US dollars), a rise of 21.5 percent over the same period of last year. This growth rate is 6.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier.

The retail sales of consumer goods in the first six months of the year grew 8.6 percent year-on-year to 1,944.8 billion yuan (about 235 billion US dollars). The consumer price index for the period dropped 0.8 percent on an yearly basis.

The average income of Chinese urban residents reached 3,942 yuan (477 US dollars) in the first half of this year, up 17.5 percent from a year earlier. Meanwhile, the average cash income ofrural residents grew 5.9 percent to 1,123 yuan.

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