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China's GDP grows 11.5 percent in first half year (2) |
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17:01, July 19, 2007 |
Although rising prices for foodstuffs - including grain, meat, poultry and eggs - pushed China''s consumer price index (CPI) up to a 28-month high of 4.4 percent in June and 3.2 percent in the first half, the country''s core CPI, with foodstuff and energy prices deducted, rose only 0.9 percent in the first half.
Prices for transportation, telecommunications, entertainment, education and cultural products declined, said Li.
The statistics bureau spokesman also said China had greatly improved the "material base" that sustained its economic development, with infrastructure and basal industries strengthened thanks to the macro control policies over the past four year.
However, Wang Xiaoguang, a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission, said the new economic data indicated the economy was showing a more obvious tendency to overheat and further moves to restrain growth would be "triggered at any time" in the latter half of the year.
"China has not yet rid itself of its heavy reliance on energy-consuming industries for growth," said Fan Jianping, a macroeconomic researcher with the State Information Center.
"Without improvement in economic structure, short-term control policies will fail to change the pattern of economic growth," said Fan.
China''s economy has maintained double-digit growth for four consecutive years and the newly released figures are likely to put the world''s fourth largest economy on track for a growth above 10 percent this year.
The Chinese government last week revised the 2006 GDP up by 146.4 billion yuan over the preliminarily calculated figure to 21.0871 trillion yuan (2.7 trillion U.S. dollars), moving the country even closer to overtaking Germany as the third largest economy.
"With Germany growing at a rate of 2.5 percent, the gap between China and Germany is narrowing," Li said.
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