A senior Chinese minister today gave the first official hint that the world’s second-biggest economy could miss growth targets this year.
Beijing has set an expansion target of 7.5% for 2013 but a raft of alarming data has seen manufacturing falter and exports hit as key markets like the eurozone suffer and the government tries to calm a credit boom.
Lou Ji-wei, said: “We don’t think 6.5% or 7% will be a big problem... from the data we have, we have the confidence.”
Premier Li Keqiang is trying to focus the economy more on domestic consumption to fuel growth. Figures on GDP growth for the April-June quarter are due on Monday.
Full-year growth of 7% would mean the economy misses the government’s official target for the first time in living memory. Analysts said Lou’s comments implied a sharp slowdown in growth for the rest of the year.
