China economy better than expected: Wen

But Wen said March domestic demand, including fixed asset investment and consumption, had shown “stable growth” compared to the year before and January and February.

China's economic situation was “better than expected”, he said, according to a recording of the remarks.

The Chinese premier was scheduled to meet with Southeast Asian leaders earlier on Saturday for a summit to sign a joint investment agreement, but Thai anti-government protesters blockading his hotel forced a delay in that meeting.

China, the only economy among the world's top five that is still growing, was hit hard by a plunge in exports and Beijing has been trying to soften the blow by boosting investment and spending at home with a 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus.

Wen noted the collapse of demand for Chinese exports among the biggest difficulties the economy faced. Dwindling trade volumes and a decline in foreign investment were reflected in the smallest quarterly rise in China's foreign exchange reserves since 2001. The world's largest stockpile rose just US$7.7 billion to US$1.9537 trillion in the past quarter, according to central bank data released on Saturday.

Data on Friday showed China's exports and imports fell for the fifth month in a row in March, but the 17 percent annual decline in exports was much less severe than feared, raising hopes that trade may start bottoming out. China's urban fixed-asset investment grew 26.5 percent in January and February from a year earlier, supported by the surge in government spending.

1|2

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email