China on track to meet 2012 growth target: Wen

TIANJIN, China: China is on track to meet this year's target for
economic growth and if needed the government could utilize a 100
billion yuan fiscal stability fund to boost growth, Premier Wen Jiabao
said on Tuesday.
Wen, speaking at a meeting of the World
Economic Forum held in China's eastern port city of Tianjin, sounded
confident of keeping the economy on a track of steady and relatively
fast growth, despite underwhelming economic data released by Beijing in
the past few days.
"China's economic development trend is good,
economic growth still remains within the target range set at the
beginning of the year, and the economy is stabilizing," Wen said.
He added that the central government would tap a special stabilization fund if needed to support economic activity.
"There is around 100 billion yuan left in the stabilization fund as of this year," Wen said.
China
set a 7.5 percent target for economic growth in 2012, but some analysts
fear that could be missed as a global slowdown drags down activity in
the world's second biggest economy.
Growth in China has slowed
for six successive quarters and some investors fear it could slide into
a seventh in the third quarter of this year, despite the "fine-tuning"
of economic policies that began in November 2011.
Two interest
rate cuts, the freeing of an estimated 1.2 trillion yuan ($190 billion)
for new lending by cutting required reserve ratios (RRR) at banks and a
raft of tax tweaks have so far failed to halt the slide.
Instead China's factories are running at their slowest rate of expansion since May 2009.
Surveys
of purchasing managers in the manufacturing sector earlier this month
showed concerns growing about new business, suggesting that factories
would run inventories down further before they begin to turn production
up again.
China said last week that it had approved more than
$150 billion-worth of infrastructure projects. That comes on top of the
monetary and fiscal easing undertaken since last year.
But some economists fear that will be insufficient to stop growth falling below the official 2012 growth target.
China's
last officially declared stimulus package was the 4 trillion yuan ($635
billion) spending plan unveiled in 2008, when global trade ground to a
halt and at least 20 million Chinese workers lost their jobs in a
matter of months as financial turmoil swept around the world.
Wen
said all the initiatives undertaken by the government so far this year
were within budgeted expenditure and that Beijing was in fiscal surplus
of about 1 trillion yuan in the year to date.
Wen's comments came after China's President Hu Jintao
warned at the weekend that the world economy is hampered by
"destabilizing factors and uncertainties" and that the 2008/09
financial crisis is far from over.
Hu promised China would do all it can to foster a global recovery by rebalancing its economy. - Reuters