A steel factory in Xingtai, North China's Hebei Province. China's economy, the world's fourth largest, probably grew more than 10 percent for the fifth straight quarter on booming exports and an investment rebound, according to a poll of 24 economists by Bloomberg News. [newsphoto]

China's economy, the world's fourth largest, probably grew more than 10 percent for the fifth straight quarter on booming exports and an investment rebound.

Gross domestic product expanded 10.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, the same pace as in the fourth quarter. The statistics bureau will release first-quarter figures in Beijing on April 19.

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China's foreign-exchange reserves grow by $1 million a minute, flooding the economy with cash and fueling investment and inflation. US complaints to the World Trade Organization last week and lawmakers'claims the yuan is kept weak to make exports cheap have stoked trade tensions.

Relations "with America, and increasingly Europe, are on the edge of major upheaval," said Donald Straszheim, vice chairman of Roth Capital Partners LLC in Newport Beach, California. Growth "would not run nearly as fast except for the essentially pegged currency."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last week called in Washington for China to allow the yuan to strengthen, while finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrial nations said the currency should "move."

The US has filed WTO complaints to try to curb piracy of copyrighted movies, music, software and books and also plans tariffs on imports of coated paper. China's trade surplus last year reached a record $177.5 billion, while the US deficit with its second-biggest trading partner was $232.5 billion.

'Bulging' Trade Surplus

"Growth momentum in the Chinese economy has picked up again," said Frank Gong, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong. "The bulging trade surplus has in turn further boosted overall liquidity in the financial system, leaving in place the fuel for rapid growth, future inflation and asset bubbles."

Premier Wen Jiabao told lawmakers last month that China needs to boost consumption and limit environmental damage to sustain the expansion of the world's fastest-growing major economy. Growth is "unstable, imbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable," the premier said.

China's economy has more than doubled in size since the end of 2000 and last year's 10.7 percent expansion was the biggest since 1995. Growth for each of the past four years was at least 10 percent.

The yuan, allowed to move 0.3 percent a day against the US dollar, has strengthened 7.1 percent against that currency since a decade-long peg was scrapped in July 2005.

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