China's growth of fixed-assets investment remained high - up by
25.9 percent - in the first six months, but has shown obvious signs
of a structural change, analysts said.
The growth rate was a drop of 3.9 percentage points over the
same period last year but 2.2 percentage points higher than three
months ago, Li Xiaochao, spokesman of the National Bureau of
Statistics, said yesterday.
The growth remains quite high though it has dropped compared
with last year, said Zhuang Jian, senior economist with the Asian
Development Bank in Beijing.
"If investment doesn't slow down significantly, China will
continue to face much pressure in meeting its environment, energy
and resource consumption targets."
Many local places, such as the economically backward western
provinces, have a strong appetite for investment, he told China
Daily, as they want to catch up with their eastern
counterparts.
The urban fixed-assets investment grew by 26.7 percent while the
rural investment increased by 21.5 percent. The rural investment
growth was 4.8 percentage points higher than the first quarter.
Industrywise, fixed-assets investment in the primary industry,
basically agriculture, rose by 37.5 percent from January to June,
much higher than in the first quarter's 20.3 percent.
"These are positive signs," Zhuang said. The structural change
indicates China's recent emphasis on rural development is being
implemented," he said.
China has vowed to build a new and prosperous countryside to
rebalance the national economy.
The central and western regions registered a fixed-assets
investment growth of 35.6 percent and 30.2 percent respectively in
the first half, much higher than eastern regions, which achieved a
growth of 22.3 percent.
To a large extent, the increase is due to the resource-related
industrial shift from eastern regions, Zhu Baoliang, chief
economist with the State Information Center, told China
Daily.
"Many of those resource-related industries are highly
capital-intensive, which, after their shift to the central and
western regions, have pumped up local investment growth," he
said.
Although this will help rebalance China's economic growth, which
has seen the eastern regions growing faster and getting more
prosperous, such strong growth in investment may trigger
environmental concerns.
(China Daily July 20, 2007)
