Premier Wen Jiabao said Friday that China has the conditions for
maintaining the current momentum of steady and fast economic growth
and that his government has full confidence in its task.
Over the past years, China's economy has maintained stable and
rapid growth, but "it is not a time for complacency", the premier
told a press conference shortly after the closing of the annual
parliamentary session Friday morning.
The Chinese economy still has some major problems, namely
unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable problems, Wen
said.
The unstable matter is that China has an excessively high
investment growth rate, excessively large extension of credit,
excessive liquidity of the currency, and improper foreign trade and
international payment, Wen said.
China has unbalanced development between urban and rural areas,
between different regions, and between economic expansion and
social progress, the premier said.
The primary, secondary, tertiary industries are not coordinated,
investment and consumption are not coordinated, and China's
economic growth relies too much on investment and export, said the
premier.
The unsustainable issue is that China has failed to address well
the issues related to energy saving, emission reduction and
environmental protection, he said.
In order to achieve sustainable development, the premier said,
China need to boost domestic consumption, push forward reform and
opening-up, remove institutional obstacles, encourage intellectual
and technological innovation, and make more efforts to conserve
energy and reduce emissions.
"The conditions are there, and the most important factor is that
we can strive for a peaceful environment for a long period of time
to concentrate our resources and energy on economic development,"
Wen said.
"To achieve the task, although it is very arduous, we have full
confidence," Wen said.
China's economic growth rate reached 10.7 percent in 2006, the
fourth year in a row that the country's GDP growth rate exceeded 10
percent while keeping the inflation rate at a low level.
(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2007)