Bloomberg: China May Report 8.5% Growth for 2009, Official Says
By Bloomberg News
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- China may report 8.5 percent economic growth for 2009, according to a senior official, topping the government's target and meeting economists' forecasts.
"Economic growth accelerated month by month," Zhang Xiaoqiang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in a statement on the agency's Web site today. Figures for fourth-quarter and full-year gross domestic product will be released this month.
China targeted 8 percent growth in 2009 and rolled out a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package to create jobs and maintain social stability as the first global recession since World War II slashed exports. Manufacturing surged in December and the economy will expand 9.4 percent this year, according to the median forecast of economists.
"We are still in a recovery phase," said Hu Yifan, a Hong Kong-based economist at Citic Securities International. "China's economy will still need to rely on government stimulus this year."
Chinese manufacturing expanded by the most in five years last month, according to a purchasing managers' index released yesterday by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics.
Zhang cited accelerating growth in GDP and industrial output during last year for the 8.5 percent estimate for 2009. An expansion of that size would match economists' median forecast. China's economy grew 7.7 percent in the first nine months of 2009 from a year earlier.