EXECUTIVE Vice-Premier and central bank governor Zhu Rongji yesterday said China's Gross National Product (GNP) was likely to grow by 13 per cent this year despite the austerity campaign launched by Beijing in June to cool its overheating economy.
Mr Zhu, addressing 600 world political and business leaders by video telelink at the Pacific Rim Forum in Bali, said overall growth for 1993 was likely to average 13 per cent, compared with nearly 14 per cent for the first six months of the year and 13 per cent in all of 1992.
According to some Beijing newspapers, this year's growth target was 10 per cent year-on-year. The revised figure is also exceptionally high when compared with an overall GNP average of eight per cent since paramount leader Deng Xiaoping first proclaimed China's open door policy in 1979.
But Mr Zhu assured the meeting that Beijing's aim was to sustain China's high economic growth rather than dampen it.
China recorded a 12.8 per cent GNP rise in 1992, prompting sceptics to question how long it would be before China tripped in its rapid race for economic growth.
Mr Zhu, speaking from Beijing, said: ''Recently there has been some concern about possible overheating of our economy. Foreign friends have wondered if the current growth rate can be sustained.