Country can't let GDP growth fall too much

I said on July 1 that the country's economy was at a low ebb because of internal and external troubles. Now I can say the situation has turned better.

The momentum of the rapidly accelerated inflation has slowed down. At a conference of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in July, the central leadership highlighted that the emphasis of the work in the latter half of this year was to ensure a steady and relatively rapid economic growth while curbing the roaring prices. A series of measures have been taken on the basis of this principle to prompt economic development.

Usually, measures to curb inflation have some negative effects on economic development. The central government made it crystal clear that it would take controlling inflation as its chief target. For this purpose, it might seem necessary to slow the pace of economic development a little. But we cannot afford to slow the pace too much given the country's enormous population. At the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) in March, this year's economic growth rate was set at 8 percent. Whatever happens, I think we should keep a more than 8 percent economic growth anyway.