How time flies.
Until just a little more than one month ago, Premier Wen Jiabao appeared to be one of the few Chinese leaders to preach confidence in the mainland's faltering economic growth since the global crisis began last autumn, with his one-liner 'confidence is more important than gold and currency'.
Nowadays Mr Wen has more and more followers at home and abroad, particularly after the release of the mainland's first-quarter economic data this month. It showed the economy grew at a record low - but better than expected - 6.1 per cent year on year.
Last Wednesday, Yi Gang , a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, apparently became the first senior official to publicly claim that the economy may have bottomed out and was on its way to reaching the 8 per cent growth target for this year. Citing the first-quarter data, he pointed to a solid rise in fixed-asset investment and retail sales, a rebound in industrial production and a record in bank lending last month. Other officials, including Mr Wen, have tried to be more cautious publicly, merely saying that the first-quarter data showed better-than-expected economic recovery.
On the day of Mr Yi's speech, Goldman Sachs revised the mainland's GDP growth forecasts to 8.3 per cent for this year and 10.9 per cent for next year, up from 6 and 9 per cent, respectively. The revision and the op-ed piece entitled 'China shows the world how to get through a crisis' by its chief economist, Jim O'Neill, caught the eyes of mainland leaders. They believed Goldman's reports may have reflected Wall Street's rising optimism in the Chinese economy.
Interestingly, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs' chairman and chief executive officer, was in Beijing last week. The publication of his bank's reports afforded him a timely and welcome topic in his meetings with high-ranking central government officials.