Policymakers urged to focus on fighting inflation
The mainland's main political advisory body opened its annual meeting yesterday, with rising inflation, the recent snowstorms and other issues highlighted by delegates.
More than 2,200 members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference from around the country gathered at Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People in the afternoon.
In his address to the opening session, CPPCC chairman Jia Qinglin , the fourth-most-powerful person in the Communist Party, urged delegates to continue offering suggestions to the government while 'unswervingly' following the party's leadership. He said delegates should advise on issues such as economic policy and social development.
The start of the CPPCC meeting will be followed tomorrow by the opening of the first plenary session of the five-year term of the 11th National People's Congress, the national legislature, which is set to appoint a new cabinet for the next five years.
On the sidelines of the CPPCC meeting, Yi Gang , a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, suggested policymakers remained focused on inflation. He said inflationary pressures remained high and the central bank had made curbing consumer price increases a key goal.
'The external and internal economic situations are complex and fast-changing. The top priority of our monetary policy is still on inflation control,' Mr Yi said.
A CPPCC delegate urged the government to set up a committee to monitor the consumer price index and make forecasts for the coming three to six months.
'We should enhance the research and forecast of prices in domestic and world markets so as to get ourselves better prepared for fluctuations,' said Zheng Zukang , dean of the School of Management at Shanghai's Fudan University.
Inflation has been gaining momentum in recent months, fuelled by steep gains in the prices of food and pork. It hit an 11-year high of 7.1 per cent in January. Wang Hai , vice-minister of commerce in charge of the wholesale and retail trade, said he saw supply shortages as the main reason behind high food prices. 'We are trying to promote the production of pork in coming months.'
Economists said the recent severe snowstorms caused supply disruptions, and crop damage would push up food prices and complicate macroeconomic policies.
Delegates attacked government failures in dealing with the bad weather and said they would raise the issues at the session.
Chen Chunlin , a CPPCC delegate and chairman of miner Wuhan Pengling Group, said the government had been unprepared for the bad weather and should be responsible for the substandard infrastructure that failed to cope with it.
Mr Chen said he would submit a proposal to the advisory body to make the government improve its work.
