Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, said on Wednesday that China has all the confidence, ability and resources to realize its major economic and social goals for 2014, despite a recent sluggish momentum.
In a keynote speech yesterday at the opening of the "Summer Davos" forum, as the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Tianjin is known, Premier Li promised China would continue to coordinate efforts to stabilize growth, promote reform, readjust structure, improve people's livelihoods and prevent risk for the remainder of 2014.
China has targeted its gross domestic product (GDP) growth at around 7.5 percent and the consumer price index (CPI) at about 3.5 percent for 2014. It also aims to add 10 million more urban jobs, and keep the registered urban unemployment rate at a maximum 4.6 percent this year.
Mr. Li said his government will continue to carry out reforms in key areas of systemic importance with determination to forge ahead and bear long-term interests in mind when addressing China's current problems.
"Facing the new normal state of the global and the Chinese economy, we have remained level-headed and taken steps to tackle deep-seated challenges. We focused more on structural readjustment and other long-term problems, and refrained from being distracted by the slight short-term fluctuations of individual indicators," said the premier.
Mr. Li urged observers of the Chinese economy to not just focus on its short-term performance or the performance of a particular sector, but rather to look at the overall trend, the bigger picture and the total score.
Judging by the principle of range-based macro-control, the government believes the actual economic growth rate is within the proper range, even if it might be slightly higher or lower than the 7.5 percent target.
"We should also be clear that China's economy is highly resilient and has much potential and ample space to grow." the premier said. "We have a full range of tools of macro-control at our disposal. The measures we have taken are good both for now and for longer-term interests, and will therefore enable us to prevent major fluctuations and make a hard landing even less possible.
However, this is not denying that our development faces difficulties and challenges. On the contrary, we are indeed confronted with enormous difficulties and challenges."
