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Ten giant panda cubs, which will be on display at this year's Shanghai World Expo at local zoos, made their public debut at the Shanghai Zoo on Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010.
China’s economy grew at a 10.7 per cent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009, from the same period a year earlier but the robust growth came with higher inflation, raising worries that recent restrictions on lending will be followed with further monetary curbs. China's economy expanded 8.7 per cent in 2009 from a year earlier, indicating that China achieved its full-year growth target of 8 per cent for 2009, according to the official data.
Consumer prices jumped at an annual 1.9 per cent rate in December, up from 0.6 per cent increase in November,.
Producer prices jumped 1.7 per cent year-on-year in December, compared with November’s 2.1 per cent fall.
GDP (gross domestic product) rose to RMB33.54 trillion yuan (US$4.91 trillion compared with the US GDP of about $14 trillion) in 2009, Ma Jiantang, director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), told a press conference Thursday.
China's fourth quarter growth of 10.7 per cent, compared with 6.2 per cent growth in the first quarter, 7.9 per cent in the second quarter, and 9.1 per cent in the third quarter.
According to the NBS, in 2009, the value-added of the primary sector topped RMB3.55 trillion yuan, up 4.2 per cent from a year earlier; that of the industrial sector stood at RMB15.70 trillion yuan, up 9.5 per cent year on year; and the tertiary sector, the service sector, reported value-added totaling RMB14.29 trillion yuan, up 8.9 percent.
"Last year is the most difficult one for China's economy in the new century," said Ma Jiantang. "Thanks to government's efforts to deal with various difficulties, the country's economy ended accelerating slide and began to recover as a whole."
“My first worry is how to control price rises while promoting economic growth; this is my first concern,”he added. “Another concern that is shared by us all is that the price of assets is probably growing too fast, for instance the price of real estate in some cities is growing too fast.”
Ma attributed the recovery mainly to the implementation of the proactive fiscal policy and moderately loose monetary policy, as well as the RMB 4 trillion stimulus package adopted by the government to cope with the global financial crisis.
He described the country's economic development last year as a "harvest," saying the newly released figures confirmed a V-shaped recovery of the economy from the world economic downturn.
In January, the government has taken measures to slow bank lending after banks issued as much as RMB1,100bn ($161bn) in new loans in just the first two weeks of the year.
Loans for second houses have been restricted to 60 per cent loan to value.
We can't view China as if it is one economy because in reality, it is a multitude of economies, observes Gerard Lyons, chief economist & head of global research at Standard Chartered. He shares his insights, with CNBC's Martin Soong, Amanda Drury & Sri Jegarajah:
