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China's GDP Grows 8.2 Percent
China said Tuesday its economy grew by 8.2 percent in the first six months of the year and will grow by 8.3 percent in the second half due to a recovery in exports and consumption.
From January to June, gross domestic product (GDP) reached 3.9 trillion yuan (US$475.7 billion), up 8.2 percent from the same period last year, China's National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Ye Zhen told a news conference.
Ye said the government expects GDP will grow by 8.3 percent in the second half of the year and that the growth rate for the entire year will top 8.2 percent + compared to growth of 7.1 percent in 1999.
"The good momentum will still be kept in the second half of this year," Ye said.
Exports will continue to grow, consumer spending is showing a rebound and the government's economic stimulus policies are showing their affect, he said.
If the government's predictions are accurate, China's growth rate for this year will be the highest in three years.
The growth rate for the first half year is the highest year-on-year first-half economic growth since before the Asian financial crisis three years ago.
In the six months through June, exports increased by 38.3 percent year-on-year to 114.5 billion dollars, compared with a 4.7 percent decline in the first six months of 1999.
Imports grew by 36.2 percent to 102.1 billion dollars, allowing China to enjoy a trade surplus of 12.4 billion dollars, 4.4 billion dollars more than the same period last year, Ye said.
The export boom was driven largely by a recovery in Asian countries that have suffered from the financial crisis but are now buying more Chinese goods.
Shipments to South Korea increased by 58 percent in the first five months of the year, while exports to Southeast Asia gained 45 percent and exports to the United States rose 29 percent.
A recovery in consumer spending also played a big role in economic growth, Ye said.
In the first six months of the year, consumption increased by 10.1 percent to 1.6 trillion yuan (195.7 billion dollars), compared with a rise of just 6.4 percent in the first half of last year.
Ye said the government's recent measures to raise taxes on interest earnings and to require people to use their real names to deposit money have encouraged more to spend, leading consumer prices to stop declining for the first time in two years, with the consumer price index rising slightly by 0.1 percent.
Government investment and economic stimulus measures also helped the economy pick up, Ye said.
Investments by state enteprises in plant and equipment -- the main indicator of government spending -- grew by 11 percent in the first half of the year to 1 trillion yuan, according to Ye.
The reform of ailing state-owned enterprises is also paying off, with profits made by the enterprises up 1.3 fold and total losses down by 7.7 percent in the first five months of this year compared to the same period last year, Ye said.
Last year, China's gross domestic product rose 7.6 percent in the first six months, and the year before, by just seven percent. In the first half of 1997, on the eve of the region-wide economic crisis, it increased by 9.5 percent.
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