China can be the first country to "regain relatively fast growth" amid the global financial crisis because of its economic foundation and stimulus policies, said a government economist Saturday.

China has several conditions to sustain a relatively strong economic expansion, said Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, or the Cabinet, at an economic forum.

Those conditions include the huge potential demand of its vast population, adequate supply of labor force and appeal to technology transfers from developed countries, said Zhang.

On top of that, the record high 950 billion yuan (139 billion U.S. dollars) fiscal deficit for 2009, as well as the moderately easy monetary policy and other macro-economic policy adjustments, can at least accelerate economic growth by 2 percentage points, he said.

"I'm fully confident that China's economy will expand by 8 percent year on year, or even faster than that, in 2009," said Zhang, noting that his judgement was based on the assumption that China can achieve a 6-percent annual growth without the stimulus moves.

He told the forum the country's economy may slow to a 6-percent year-on-year growth in the first quarter and then gradually pick up, helped by the country's 4 trillion-yuan stimulus package announced last November and the warming auto and housing markets.

Sales of China-made cars rose 24.7 percent year-on-year to 827,600 units in February, compared with an annual drop of 14.35 percent in January, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

Analysts said the data could be distorted by the Spring Festival, which fell in January this year but in February last year. The festival period usually sees slack sales as a result of celebrations.

The housing market presented a mixed picture, with the the area of sold commercial houses in the southern Guangdong Province rising 21.5 percent year on year in the January-February period and that in Shanghai dropping 18.8 percent in February from a year earlier.

Other economists said it will take a longer time to see an obvious rebound of China's economy.

The economy may bottom out in the latter half of this year but won't immediately rebound, said Wang Yiming, vice president of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research with the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planner.

He told the same forum Chin's economy may need at least two to three years of adjustment because of the world-scale crisis impact and the country's own demand for industrial restructuring and reforms.

If China's stimulus measures fail to have an effect on the economy, the government's next step should focus on tapping the consumption potential and investing in public services such as education and medical care, said Wang.

Zhang urged China to pay more attention to upgrading industrial structure, improving the efficiency of allocating resources and using energy, cutting emissions of pollutants and making people's lives better off.

China's annual economic growth slowed to a seven-year low of 9 percent in 2009 as the world financial crisis took a toll. The government aims at an about 8-percent growth for this year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2009)