The Chinese economic juggernaut slowed but still maintained double-digit growth in the first half of the year as it battled inflation and absorbed global setbacks, official data showed yesterday.
The world’s fourth-biggest economy expanded by 10.4 percent in the first half and 10.1 percent in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NSB) said, down from the sizzling pace of 11.9 percent recorded for all of last year.
Bureau spokesman Li Xiaochao (李曉超) said domestic inflation, problems with food supplies and global economic woes were among the chief concerns for China.
PHOTO: EPA
“Pressure for rapid price increases remains high, there are factors constraining steady agricultural production,” Li said. “The international financial situation is severe and there are uncertainties in world economic development.”
Nevertheless, he said China’s economy remained strong and that the slowdown was under control.
“The national economy maintains the momentum of steady and fast growth,” he said. “This slowdown is in line with our expectations.”
NBS chief economist Yao Jingyuan (姚景源) said the economy would likely grow at 10 percent for the full year, although this was still above the target set by Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) of 8 percent.
China’s consumer price index — the main gauge of inflation — rose 7.9 percent in the first half of the year, with food prices soaring 20.4 percent, the bureau said.
However, inflation has come off 12-year highs seen earlier in the year, when it peaked at 8.7 percent in February, with economists saying the fall was due to a raft of economic tightening measures, including interest rate hikes.
Inflation was 7.1 percent last month, the bureau said.
Nevertheless, there were few expectations inflation would fall steeply enough to achieve the government’s full-year target of 4.8 percent.
“Certainly, the expectation for inflation is fairly strong ... due to price rises on the international market,” Li said.
China had already released data last week showing the nation’s trade surplus had fallen nearly 12 percent in the first half, as exporters struggled with the global economic slowdown, particularly problems in the US.
The appreciation of the yuan against the US dollar, as well as curbs such as tariffs on exports imposed by the government to rein in the surplus, also contributed to the decline.
Economists said Sichuan earthquake in May, which left 88,000 dead or missing, did not have a big impact on the economic growth numbers in the second quarter.
However, a huge post-quake reconstruction effort could lift the growth numbers in the short term, said Sherman Chan (陳穎嘉), an expert with Moody’s Economy.com.
“Rapid and large-scale reconstruction works in the next couple of years will provide a boost to economic activity,” he said.
Industrial output expanded by 16.3 percent in the first half and 16.0 percent last month alone, the bureau said.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS