China Exceeds Growth Target - GDP Up 8.7% in 2009

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 8.7 percent in 2009, surpassing the central government's goal of 8 percent growth for the year.

According to preliminary calculations, the GDP in 2009 reached 33.53 trillion yuan (4.9 trillion US dollars), Ma Jiantang, head of China's National Bureau of Statistics told a press conference Thursday morning.

The fourth quarter in 2009 saw an year-on-year increase of 10.7 percent in GDP, Ma said. The figure came on top of a revised 9.1 percent increase registered in the third quarter, 7.9 percent in the second quarter and revised 6.2 percent increase in the first quarter.

In the latest quarterly report released by the Economic Observer, 33 influential Chinese economists reveal their forecasts about the outlook for the Chinese economy in 2010. Sixty-four percent of the economists surveyed predicted GDP growth of somewhere between 9 and 10 percent in 2010, with two thirds of them forecasting that economic growth would peak in the first quarter.

During this morning's press conference, Ma also introduced economic indicators in terms of investment, foreign trade and industrial output.

Fixed asset investment in 2009 reached 22.48 trillion yuan (3.29 trillion US dollars), up 30.1 percent from a year earlier.

The country's total trade volume, an aggregate of total import and export figures, reached 2.2 trillion US dollars, down 13.9 percent from a year earlier. However, the monthly growth of trade volume turned positive in November when it rose by 9.8 percent from a year earlier, the December trade figures were up 32.7 percent on the figures reported last December when Chinese exports were reeling from plummeting global demand.

Total value of exports reached 1.2 trillion US dollars in 2009, 16 percent lower than in 2008. The value of imports also decreased 11.2 percent from a year earlier to 1 trillion US dollars.

The country registered a trade surplus of 196.1 billion US dollars in 2009, 99.4 billion US dollars less than the previous year, said Ma.

The country's industrial output rose 11 percent in 2009 from a year earlier, but the growth rate was 1.9 percentage points lower than that in 2008.

1 US dollar = 6.827 yuan

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