Chinese growth target attainable: experts

Chinese government Thursday set its annual economic growth target at "around 7 percent." Experts here reckon that the target is attainable, and the Chinese government is more focused on balanced and sustainable growth, with ability to absorb social workforce. [Special coverage]

Kamel Mellahi, professor at Britain's Warwick Business School, told Xinhua: "Seven percent is not an easy target to hit, but I believe it is attainable."

He noted the Chinese economy is fighting against strong headwinds from low domestic consumption and mounting deflationary pressures to intolerable levels of pollution.

But "I don't think these deep seated challenges are going to bring the world's second-biggest economy to its knees. The economy is losing speed, but at the same time it is becoming more balanced and more sustainable. Plus, I think the Chinese Government has enough ammunition to pull the economy from slipping into a deceleration cycle," he stressed.

Professor Mellahi believes that what is perhaps more important to Chinese citizens than hitting the growth target is job creation. The challenge for the Chinese Government is to ensure that enough jobs are created despite the economic slowdown.

Andrew Colquhoun, Head of Asia-Pacific Sovereigns at Fitch Ratings, however, sees a merry outlook on Chinese reform agenda.

He said Fitch does not share some pessimistic analysis about "inevitable painful trade-off" between letting growth slow and letting the economy's debt burden continue to rise.

"The government's structural reform program, if implemented, would create space for more sustainable forms of growth that could break the economy out of the debt trap," he said to Xinhua.

The Britain-based rating agency highlights three key areas of reforms as the most important in achieving the leadership's stated objective of a more sustainable and balanced growth path.

The first is financial reform, in particular deposit interest rate liberalization, which would likely be the single most powerful engine for reform and rebalancing.

The second is state-owned enterprise reform to narrow the efficiency gap between the state-owned sector and the broader corporate sector.

The third is fiscal reform, or strengthening the fiscal resources of the local governments to match their spending commitments.