Editorials

Robust growth indicator

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-07 07:51

Editor's note: The rising income of residents in China's underdeveloped regions will help the country to get a higher CFI.

The upward drift in the consumer confidence index (CFI) comes as heartening news.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated in its recent report that the CFI in China has risen to its highest level since 2007.

The CFI has continued to climb in the first quarter to levels seen before the financial crisis, surveys show.

We are of course hoping that the NBS data is reliable and those efforts by both the central and local governments to stimulate economic growth and restructure the development model have encouraged sensible growth and lifted employment prospects.

Yet, the hope is little more than a wish now, with the NBS pegging the hike in growth rates of home prices at 1.5 percent for 2009. The NBS' director attributed this counterintuitive figure to technical problems, saying the data was based on reports from real estate developers.

Recent policy measures aimed at bludgeoning soaring home prices run counter to the absurdly low rise in the price of residential houses, if NBS is to be believed.

Even so, the CFI numbers may be taken at face value - thanks to government efforts to hike rural incomes and those of workers, the CFI in villages and smaller cities in the central and western regions should rise substantially, higher than in the metros, the NBS points out.

This portends stable economic growth for the foreseeable future - as villagers and residents in underdeveloped areas catch up with their counterparts in coastal regions, it spells good news as far the country's consumption potential is concerned.