Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the country should not focus on its economic growth rate only, reiterating China’s push for a more sustainable, higher-quality expansion.
Chinese leaders have announced an economic growth target of around 7 percent for this year, below the 7.5 percent goal in 2014 and the slowest rate in a quarter-century.
Xi, who was speaking at a forum in Boao on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, said 7 percent growth was still impressive and would be a big driver of momentum. He said the Chinese economy was resilient and had much potential, allowing for a host of policy tools. Analysts anticipate further interest rate cuts in China this year.
The theme of the Boao forum is: “Asia’s New Future: Towards a Community of Common Destiny”.
The President also said that Beijing’s new Asian investment schemes do not aim to displace existing regional programmes, after US scepticism about the Beijing-backed AIIB bank.
China is expanding its financial clout in Asia with the founding of a “Belt and Road” scheme to invest in regional transport links, as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a multinational lender that the United States perceives as a threat to the Washington-led World Bank.
Xi told the summit that the “Belt and Road” scheme had “no intention of replacing existing mechanisms or initiatives for regional cooperation”, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
“All countries along the routes in Asia, as well as China’s friends and partners around the world” are invited to take part in the programme as well as the AIIB, Xi added, according to Xinhua.
But Xi repeated earlier calls for a “new security concept” in Asia, which has been seen by Western analysts as a push by China to dilute US influence in the Pacific.
The US has reportedly lobbied hard to prevent its Western allies from signing up to the AIIB — apparently to little avail, with Germany, France and Britain all expressing an intention to join.
Xi, who leads China’s ruling Communist party, also sought to reassure fears on China’s economy, which grew at its slowest pace in nearly 25 years last year.
He said that observers should “not look at the growth rate only,” when assessing economic health, arguing that economic efficiency was a more important measure.
Reuters/AFP
