Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said on Wednesday that China was committed to forceful measures to cool its dangerously fast-growing economy, which has benefited global growth but which, left unchecked, has the potential to drag it down.
Wen, on the eve of a 10-day tour that includes stops in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Ireland and Britain, also said he hoped to build on a partnership with the EU -- his first visit to the continent since he was named premier in March last year.
PHOTO: AFP
China reported 9.7-percent growth in the first quarter of this year but faces resurgent inflation due to unchecked expansion in money supply, bank credit and fixed asset investment.
Counting out a series of problems on his fingers, Wen underscored the weaknesses underlying one of the world's fastest growing economies, problems which he said would prevent all but the most prudent steps in reforming the tightly held yuan currency.
"We need to take effective and very forceful measures to resolve those problems as soon as pos-sible," Wen said.
Beijing has restricted bank lending, singled out cement, steel and aluminum projects in a broad clampdown to stamp out excess development and, just on Wednesday, issued new land-use rules to rein in industrial growth.
"We believe that all those measures are going to take off in future, and we hope not to see any major ups and downs in our economic development," he said.
Wen's comments helped push prices down in metal markets, as traders in both stock and futures markets worried any moves aimed at cooling China's economy could cut into strong demand for metals that have underpinned profits of many companies. The pressures would require China to tread softly in reforming the yuan, he said, and sudden changes would threaten global growth.
"If we change the system rashly, it will certainly bring unpredictable problems to the domestic economy, and at the same time could affect the financial stability of the region and even the world," Wen said.
Analysts have said China may move on the currency towards the end of this year, and officials have said they are studying the possibility of pegging it to a basket of currencies, a measure somewhere in between an outright revaluation and a modest widening of the tra-ding band.
Wen offered no preference for which path China might take, saying only that it would keep an open mind and was willing to give serious study to any proposal.
US metal stocks fell sharply on concerns that credit restrictions in China could dent the country's demand for raw materials. New York metal futures also tumbled. China has been sucking in raw materials to feed a construction boom and rising demand for consumer goods.
"That seems to be behind just about everything, the fact they are trying to curb credit," said James Pogoda, a vice president of precious metals at Mitsubishi International Corp in New York.
"Demand out of China, which has just been huge for the past year or more, could be slowed and could be hamstrung by some of these regulations or whatever is going to be announced," he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS