Chinese Officials Vow Help in Face of Slowing Growth

Top Chinese officials vowed various steps to help counter slowing growth, adding to a drumbeat of calls for people to remain confident even as the economy faces its toughest test in years.

CNBC.com

Annual growth slowed to 9 percent in the third quarter, from 11.9 percent for all of last year, and economists widely expect it soon to fall below the 8 percent pace that is considered necessary to create enough new jobs.

The government has pledged help for the property sector and increased infrastructure spending to support growth. It has also cut interest rates three times in past weeks. But anecdotal evidence suggests many factories are starting to lay off workers.

"Every level of government must increase the foresight, focus and effectiveness of their economic work and implement it well, to try to expand domestic demand and maintain a reasonable amount of investment," Vice Premier Li Keqiang was quoted by the official People's Daily on Wednesday as saying.

"We especially need to improve people's spending power, improve the conditions for consumption, and better bring to bear the role that expanding consumption can play in supporting growth," he said during a visit to eastern Shandong province.

Li said the government would do more to improve social welfare and medical care to reduce the need for precautionary savings, and pledged further support for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which create the bulk of new jobs.

Commerce Minister Chen Deming acknowledged that exports would probably slow through the first half of next year due to the global crisis, but stressed that Beijing stood ready to help.

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The government is "currently enacting flexible and prudent measures to help improve SMEs' financial conditions, to help labor-intensive firms improve their competitiveness, and to maintain basic stability in trade", the official Xinhua news agency cited Chen as saying.

Yin Weimin, Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, also pledged support for employment, cautioning that without effective measures job creation could slow down next year.

The government would offer help to SMEs and labor-intensive firms to support job growth. It would also look to expand social insurance coverage and widen pilot projects for improving pensions and medical care, he said.

"The employment situation so far this year remains stable, and the income of the social welfare fund has continued to grow quickly. I'm very confident we can fulfil all the aims of social welfare work," the official People's Daily quoted Yin as saying.

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