IMF says China's economy will not have a hard landing this year
The International Monetary Fund all but ruled out a hard landing for China's slowing economy, saying it would expand despite increasing headwinds from battered markets in Europe and the United States.
Earlier this week, the IMF cut its estimate for growth in the world's second-largest economy this year, to 7.8 per cent this year and 8.2 per cent in 2013, down from a July estimate of 8 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively.
"China is not having a hard landing. The numbers are clearly recognising that China will grow this year," Anoop Singh, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific department, said at the IMF and World Bank's annual meetings in the Japanese capital.
Yi Gang, deputy governor of China's central bank, yesterday said the mainland's economy will grow 7.8 per cent this year, exceeding the official target of 7.5 per cent.
Meantime, Germany's finance minister said yesterday there was "no alternative" to cutting debt in European countries, the day after the chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for Greece to be given more time to pare its deficit.
"There's no alternative to reduce in the medium-term too-high sovereign debts, especially, and of course for … the euro zone as a whole," Wolfgang Schäuble said in a debate with IMF managing director Christine Lagarde.
Lagarde appeared to soften on Thursday on the need for heavily indebted countries to trim their fiscal positions, when she said: "Instead of front-loading heavily it is sometimes better … to have a bit more time."
Separately, in another blow to Greece, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling, the world's second-biggest Coca-Cola bottler and Greece's largest company by market value, plans to move its main stock listing from Athens to London.
