China's macro-economy can no longer be
properly described as "overheating," as the country's
economic growth peaks and gradually slows, the latest report
from the Morgan Chase Company said Tuesday.
"We'd rather use 'moderate' to describe
the growing trend of China's macro-economy," Morgan
Chase economist Ben Simpfendorfer was quoted as saying by
the Beijing-based First Finance Daily Tuesday.
A decline in the investment of fixed assets
has been attributed to the moderate trend, said the newspaper.
The cement industry, for instance, has seen
a reduced production capacity. Nearly 2,000 of the country's
5,700 manufacturers have either reduced or halted their
production this year amidst a sluggish market demand and
rising production costs spurred by increasing raw material
prices, said the report.
According to previous figures released by
the National Bureau of Statistics, the country's combined
investment in fixed assets between January and April decreased
1.9 percentage points to 25.7 percent from the same period
last year.
Meanwhile, the growth rate of financial
institutes' balance for loans slowed 2 percentage points
from the end of last year to 12.5percent in April. The deposit
balance of companies grew at 13.2 percent, about 3.6 percentage
points less than the end of last year.
Wang Jianzeng, executive deputy secretary-general
of the Macro-economy Society of the State Development and
Reform Commission, warned that the real concern of China's
macro-economy could be deflation as the year-on-year increases
of consumer product index have been 1.8 percent for two
consecutive months since April.
According to the newspaper, the Morgan
Chase report predicted that China's gross domestic product
(GDP) will grow 8.5 percent in the first six months of this
year and slow down to higher than 8 percent at the end of
this year.
Jim Walker, chief economist of the Credit Lyonnais Securities
for Asia-Pacific Market, also projected a slower growth
rate for China's economy.
China's GDP will grow 8 to 9 percent this
year but slow to between 6 and 7 percent next year, he said
to the newspaper.
Source:
Xinhua
