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China's economic outlook rosy

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-20 15:04

BEIJING: China's central bank said on Saturday it had done a good job promoting economic growth and would keep implementing pro-growth policies as set by the country's top leadership at a meeting this week.

"We have sent timely signals for ensuring economic growth and stabilizing market confidence, and we have forcefully promoted the stable and rapid growth of the national economy," the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website (www.pbc.gov.cn).

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The statement did not give details about future monetary policy moves but said it would follow guidelines from China's leadership.

The Chinese government pledged Friday that China would continue to implement an "appropriately relaxed" monetary policy as the economic recovery was still on shaky ground.

Separately, Yao Jingyuan, the National Bureau of Statistics' chief economist, said China's economy would be able to achieve a growth target of 8 percent this year, but the country should not rest on its laurels as problems remained.

Yao told a forum in Shanghai that the basis for China's economic recovery were still not stable, and many uncertainties existed.

Authorities have set a target of 8 percent gross domestic product growth this year, something most economists think is in sight since annual growth reached 7.9 percent in the second quarter and appears set to accelerate in year-on-year terms in the second half.

Yao said the 8 percent target will "be difficult but is not a problem", according to a report by the China News Service.

Figures for August showed industrial output, investment and money supply growth all accelerated, prompting many economists to say the recovery is now solid. Officials have been more circumspect, though.

Yao said the slide in China's economic performance which began in the second half of last year had already been arrested.

"But we cannot be blindly optimistic about these achievements, as the basis for China's economic recovery is still not firm, and there exist many uncertainties," he was paraphrased as saying.

As for the possible threat of resurgent inflation, Yao said that at least for this year it would not be a worry.