By Xinhua,
Beijing : China’s economic planners gathered here Monday to work out strategies to address the impact of global slowdown on its economy and maintain a stable growth.
Analysts said the country’s economic growth would be maintained at nine percent for the whole of next year, compared with an 11.4 percent expansion in 2007.
Chinese President Hu Jintao Nov 28 said the top priority of the country’s 2009 economic agenda is to maintain a “stable and relatively fast growth”.
He said the country would pursue an “all-round sustainable” growth that stresses both quality and efficiency next year, while going after a better combination of “maintaining growth, strengthening domestic demand and restructuring the economy”.
The president also said the country would continue to practice “active” fiscal and “moderately loose” monetary policies.
These strategies were adopted earlier last month in response to the financial crisis, replacing the earlier “tight” monetary policies aimed at curbing inflation and averting overheating.
China managed to keep a stable and relatively rapid growth so far this year, despite several setbacks including a freak winter, the disastrous May 12 earthquake in the northeast, and the ongoing global financial crisis.
The economy grew at the rate of 9.9 percent in the first three quarters of the current year.
But concerns on a slowdown began to surface in recent months, as the country received more pinches from the global financial crisis.
The country’s growth in the third quarter was nine percent year on year, the slowest pace in about five years, due to shrinking exports and investment.
In order to shore up the economy, the State Council, or the cabinet, had announced a four-trillion-yuan stimulus package to expand the domestic demand, in addition to more active macro policies.
The government has also taken a series of steps month to bolster the economy, such as approving multi-billion-dollar investment projects, raising export rebates three times in the second half, as well as hefty interest rate cuts.
More measures are expected to be announced during the three-day annual meeting of the country’s economic planners.