Asia Sentinel, 25 Dec 2008, Mark A. DeWeaver
Even with the outlook for the world economy rapidly worsening, many economists are still relatively optimistic about the prospects for the Chinese economy next year. While the International Monetary Fund recently lowered its forecast for 2009 real GDP growth to 5 percent, the World Bank is expecting 7.5 percent. This was also the consensus estimate of professional forecasters surveyed earlier this month by Frankfurt-based Dekabank. Wang Tong-san, a spokesperson for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was even more upbeat at a recent press conference, telling reporters he expected 9 percent, or even a bit more, and putting the likelihood of this prediction at "better than 70 percent."
Speaking at the opening of the fifth US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue on December 4, China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiao-chuan sounded a more pessimistic note, however, warning that China must prepare for the “worst case scenario.”
Read More
