BEIJING, Aug 27 (Reuters) - China's economy may yet feel more pain from global economic troubles and the government should prepare a policy response, a top economic planner was cited by state media as saying on Wednesday.
"The current international environment is becoming more and more complicated and unstable," Zhu Zhixin, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in a routine report to parliament.
"Negative impact on our economy will be felt further," he said, according to state television.
China's annual economic growth slowed to 10.1 percent in the second quarter from 11.9 percent for the whole of 2007 because of tightening polices and weaker external demand.
At the same time, high global energy and commodity prices have stoked China's producer price inflation, which rose 10 percent in July from a year earlier, the highest since the mid-1990s.
"Inflationary pressures are still quite large and a lot of industries and companies are facing many difficulties in their operations," Zhu said.
China had done better on consumer inflation, as food price pressures have eased considerably thanks to increased supply. Consumer inflation fell to 6.3 percent in July, well down from a 12-year peak of 8.7 percent in February.
Repeating standard government phrasing, Zhu said China should make the safeguarding of sound economic growth its priority, while also keeping up its fight against inflation. (Reporting by Eadie Chen; editing by Stephen Nisbet) |
