Xi Says China’s Slower Economic Growth Is Result of Adjustment Chinese President Xi Jinping said China’s slower economic growth this year was a conscious choice by the government to allow it to adjust the nation’s economic structure. China would “rather bring down the growth rate to a certain extent in order to solve the fundamental problems” hindering long-run development, Xi said in an interview yesterday with media outlets from Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to a transcript distributed by the official Xinhua News Agency. The comments follow government efforts this year to curb excess lending and shutter inefficient plants in industries including metals and cement. Data this week showed manufacturing strengthened last month, and trade and industrial production topped analysts’ estimates in July, adding to signs that China will meet its 7.5 percent growth target this year. “The fundamentals of the Chinese economy are sound,” Xi said, according to the Xinhua transcript. “The growth rate could have been higher had we continued with the past development model.” The economy expanded 7.5 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, extending the longest streak of sub-8 percent growth in at least two decades. China is confronted with difficulties such as local government debt and overcapacity in some industries, Xi said. Still, “problems are well within control and could be handled properly,” he said. Concerns China is concerned about the challenges of capital outflows, currency depreciation and rising inflation that some Asian countries face amid expectations that developed nations will stop monetary-easing policies, Premier Li Keqiang said yesterday at the China-Asean Expo in Nanning, China. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. researchers yesterday boosted their 2013 growth estimate to 7.6 percent from 7.4 percent, joining Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in raising projections. The government signaled in July that it will defend its economic-growth target for the year after expansion slowed for a second quarter. China, the world’s second-largest economy, has announced what Bank of America Corp. called a “small stimulus,” consisting of measures including tax breaks for small companies and accelerated railway construction.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 10:14:56 +0000