Top Biz News

Blue Book: China's GDP to rise slowly

By Qiang Xiaoji (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-12-08 18:06

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) published the "2010 Blue Book of China's Economy" Monday, which has predicted China's GDP will reach a growth rate of 8.3 percent this year and possibly hit 9.1 percent next year.

China's consumer price index (CPI) will be negative 0.5 percent this year and be contained to less than 3 percent next year, Shanghai Securities Journal reported, citing the book.

China's economy would show a tendency of slow climbing next year, experts from the CASS said at the book release, the report said.

Remaining cautious about inflation

Chen Jiagui, chief editor of the book said the investment, consumption, export, commodity price, and other indexes all show a tendency of moderate climbing in the coming year. China's economic growth would be mild next year and the growth rate was estimated to surpass 9 percent, he predicted.

The impact of the financial crisis would still last for a while and the expansion of consumer demands, especially domestic civil demands, requires a long period, so the macro economic policies would focus on ensuring a stable and relatively fast economic growth, preventing dramatic changes, Chen concluded.

As for CPI, the book predicted China's economy would not face obvious inflation next year and the year-on-year growth rate of CPI would be limited within 3 percent.

Zhang Tao, one of editors of the book said China should be alert of imported inflation and inflation caused by excessive liquidity.

Investment predicted to grow 23 percent in 2010

The book also predicted that the total investment in the fixed asset sector would increase 32 percent in 2009, hitting a record high in recent 16 years and would grow approximately 23 percent in 2010, decreasing a little but maintaining at a high level.

This year's total investment in the fixed asset sector would reach 22.74 trillion yuan, with a nominal year-on-year growth rate of 32 percent and a real growth rate of 34.4 percent by eliminating the price factor. If the central government continues to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy, investment in fixed assets would continue to grow at relatively fast speed in 2010. The nominal growth rate was predicted to be 23.9 percent and the total investment in fixed assets would account for more than 70 percent of the total GDP, the book said.

This year's economic growth was basically pulled by investment and in 2010 investment would continue to grow but slow down, Zhang said.