NDRC: China eyes quality growth in 2019

World
Europe

02:18

Quality growth, instead of high growth rate, is still set to top the second largest economy's agenda, China's top economic planning body said at a news conference on Tuesday.

"China is in the pursuit of high-speed growth though it places a higher value on propping up high-quality development. The country is capable of maintaining reasonable growth," Meng Wei, spokesperson of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) noted.

China's economy posted steady growth at 6.6 percent to over 90 trillion yuan (13.7 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2018 despite looming uncertainties and financial regulatory tightening, a marginal pickup as compared to the official target of around 6.5 percent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Monday.

Meng cited that the added value of industrial enterprises went up by 6.2 percent year-on-year, with the added value of primary production and service industry production index notched up gains of 3.5 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively. Fixed asset investment climbed 5.9 percent in 2018, following a mild rebound month by month in the fourth quarter.

"In early January, World Bank predicted China's economy growth for 2018 would stand at 6.5 percent. Projections from IMF and OECD were roughly the same, in the 6.5-6.6 percent range. I should say forecasts of these organizations are comparable and persuasive," Meng added.