Highlights of NDRC press conference

Growth is stable; concerns are unnecessary

Some organizations and media companies have taken a negative view on China's economic data that came out in January and February.

However, I(Xu) predict that China's overall economic situation will continue to be stable and will see steady progress. China's GDP rose by 7.7 percent last year and CPI by 2.6 percent. It added 13.1 million new jobs in the same period. The national per capita disposable income rose by 8.1 percent. This was good and even better than expected.

Smoothing government reform progress

The most noticeable thing is the transformation of government functions and delegation of administrative powers to lower levels.

Since last year, 416 administrative approval items had been cancelled or delegated to lower levels, further bringing out vitality of the market.

The number of newly-registered firms has reached to 2.5 million, an increase of 27.6 percent compared to the previous year.

This year, further reforms will be carried out in the administrative system, market system, state-owned enterprises, taxation system, and financial system, etc.

Two 'firsts' stand out in Chinese economy

There are two "firsts" in the economic development of last year that should be mentioned. The first "first" is that the total value of imported and exported goods reached 25.8 trillion yuan. China, for the first time, became the world's largest goods trading country. Second "first" is that the tertiary industry, for the first time, made up 46.1 percent of the total GDP, surpassing the second industry. This shows that the restructuring of our country's economy has made great progress. A historic upheaval occurred in the structure of the three industries.

Compared with developed and major developing countries, a 7.7 percent growth rate is the fastest. Such kind of high speed growth has also made important contributions to the world economy. China's economic growth accounted for 30 percent of the global economic growth.