Beijing redoubles efforts to quell fears about state of the Chinese economy as bad news piles up
- China’s economic ministries line up to send message of confidence to the public
- Efforts come at a time when slowdown is deepening in the world’s No 2 economy
Beijing has stepped up efforts to reassure the public that the economic slowdown is under control, as the country deals with its slowest growth in decades amid an ongoing trade war with the US.
The Chinese government organised two back-to-back press conferences in the last two days, with senior officials from six powerful ministries voicing confidence in the prospects of world’s second biggest economy and providing Beijing’s explanation on negative economic news such as the first year-on-year fall in car sales in nearly three decades and job market stress.
Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, told a media briefing on Wednesday that China’s industrial sector was actually performing “slightly better than expected” and that the recent economic slowdown was merely a “short-term fluctuation”.
On car sales, Xin said he was optimistic about 2019 as “new demand will be unleashed in China’s third and fourth-tier cities” as “old car models will be replaced”.
Qiu Xiaoping, a vice labour minister, said at the same briefing that the “employment situation last year was fairly good”, citing that over 13 million jobs were created in 2018 which kept the official unemployment rate at 3.8 per cent.
The tone of confidence was similar at another press event on Tuesday when officials from China’s National Development Reform and Commission, Ministry of Finance and the People’s Bank of China told reporters of their policy plans to stabilise growth.