China’s economic growth quickened in the second quarter from the previous three months, but further modest government support measures will still be needed, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) said yesterday.
Speaking at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is visiting Beijing, Li said the Chinese economy still faces downward pressures and that the government will increase its usage of targeted measures to boost growth.
His cautiously optimistic remarks may boost market confidence ahead of China’s second-quarter economic report due on Wednesday next week.
Photo: EPA
Analysts polled by reporters expect China’s growth for the April-June period to have steadied at 7.4 percent.
“China’s economic performance in the second quarter has improved from that in the first quarter. However, we cannot lower our guard against downward pressures. We will keep up our composure and not adopt strong stimulus. Instead, We will increase the strength of targeted measures,” Li said.
To lift China’s flagging economic growth, which hit an 18-month low of 7.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, authorities have cut taxes, ordered regional governments to speed up spending and reduced the amount of cash that some banks have to hold as reserves.
However, on the back of China’s rapid credit growth in recent years, some experts — including the IMF — have urged Chinese authorities to desist from dramatically loosening policy and focus on pursuing needed reforms.
A series of surveys of China’s manufacturing and services sectors suggests that growth in the world’s second-largest economy may have stabilized in recent months, though a cooling property sector is now shaping up to be the biggest threat.
Li said authorities were to further fine-tune policies and expressed confidence the government’s growth target of around 7.5 percent for this year can be met. However, he added that authorities do not plan any massive stimulus program.
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