PBOC governor: China’s H2 GDP growth likely to return 7%

2017-10-16
CGTN

China’s GDP growth for the second half of 2017 is likely to return to 7 percent, said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, the central bank of the world’s second largest economy.

The prediction, if substantiated, will be the highest reading since 2016 when the Chinese growth rate dipped down below 7 percent, ensuring that China will surely meet its targeted growth rate for the year of 6.8 percent.

Official data showed the growth rate for the first half of 2017 was 6.9 percent.

“Domestic consumption is the key drive for the growth, which has seen the sales for consuming goods increase by 10.4 percent year-on-year,” the governor said in his speech on Oct 15 at a seminar hosted by the Group of Thirty in Washington.

The expansion in the service sector has accounted for more than half of the national output increase, Zhou said.

The growth rate had translated into a momentum that boosted China’s labor market. About 10 million new jobs were created nationwide during the first eight months, Zhou added.