VP: China expected to achieve 8% growth rate

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-10 10:09

BRUSSELS: Visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping said here on Friday that China is likely to achieve the targeted annual economic growth of 8 percent.

Xi made the remarks when speaking to representatives from overseas Chinese compatriots and students and Chinese companies operating in Belgium.

"We have been actively coping with the international financial crisis and taken a series of effective measures to ensure that China's economy can stabilize and move towards the right direction," Xi said.

Thanks to a package of effective macro-control measures and rescue plans, China recorded in the first half of this year a 7.1 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP), he noted.

Developing in such a pace, "We can achieve the expected annual growth of 8 percent," he said, adding that China still needed to do more to promote sound and rapid development of its economy as uncertainties in the country's and world's economic picture remained.

During his stay in Brussels, Xi met Belgian government leaders and King Albert II, as well as European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

He attended the opening ceremony on Thursday of the Europalia China art festival, which will showcase Chinese traditional and modern arts, performances and lifestyle in Belgium and neighboring countries in the four months to come.

He will visit Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania in the following days.