China's consumer price index (CPI) will rise 4.5 percent to 4.6
percent for the whole of the current year, which will indicate a
moderate and bearable inflation, the country's top statistician Xie
Fuzhan said Thursday at Tsinghua University.
Xie, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, added that the
monthly growth rate of CPI would likely linger at 6 percent or so
for several months to come.
China's CPI, a major inflation measurement, hit 6.5 percent in
August, 6.2 percent in September and 6.5 percent again in October,
well above the government-set alarm level of 3 percent.
Xie said the CPI rises were driven up mainly by price hikes for
foodstuffs, which were mainly caused by rising production
costs.
According to Xie, global price rises for crude oil fuelled price
rises for industrial products. Meanwhile, price rises for
nonferrous metals and iron ores also contributed to the CPI
increase.
"Substantial price rises for real estate and equities translate
to higher risks on economic growth in the long term," he said.
To stabilize the national economy, Xie believed, the volume of
gross domestic product should be put under control and the GDP
growth rate should be brought back to within 10 percent through use
of both monetary and fiscal policies.
According to Xie, the government will continue a moderately
tight macro-economic policy for a short period of time to utilize
monetary policies to control liquidity and to prevent credits and
investment from growing too fast.
China's central bank has raised commercial banks' reserve
requirement ratio nine times and interest rates five times this
year.
Xie forecast China's GDP growth at 11.5 percent for the whole of
this year. He said the foreign exchange rate of China's currency,
Renminbi, should be more flexible.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2007)
