New economic growth mode is good news (People's Daily Online) Updated: 2006-06-15 13:57
Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley, said in his latest economic
review that although China is more influential than any other economy in the
world in terms of pushing up global demand for bulk commodities, the new policy
made by the Chinese leadership indicates a major shift of the country's growth
model --- from high-resources consumption manner to low-resources consumption.
He believes this strategy would not only facilitate China's sustainable
development, but also well serve the global economy.
Statistics show astonishing proportion of China's contribution to the
increase in world's industrial material consumption. Among which, consumption of
aluminum increased by 50%, iron ore by 84%, steel by 108%, cement 115%, zinc
120%, and copper and nickel even by triple. China has become the largest
consumer of copper, nickel and zinc. Apparently the Chinese economy is mainly
based on bulk commodities consuming industrial production and driven by fixed
investment and export.
When many think this trend will go on limitless, the Chinese leaders have
wisely made the new growth guideline. Stephen Roach expects that the new
strategy would bring significant effect to China's economic growth features, and
even influence the financial market and global economy.
Stephen Roach also interpreted the newly promulgated 11th Five-year Plan, and
found that China would focus more on boosting its domestic consumption and
reduce its reliance on investment and export.
In his forecast, in the future 5 years, China will maintain annual GDP growth
of 7.5% and reduce its resource consumption by 20% per GDP by 2010.
He regards all of this as an implication that the process of China's economic
re-balancing has begun. (For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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