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[quote=MRCT,365070]China Economic Scan Weekly Economic Review – 24 April 2009

In the past week some high profile estimates of 2009 GDP growth surfaced, ranging from 7% to 8.3% for China. Meanwhile bank regulators said bad loans had fallen and held industry discussions on loan growth. Unemployment data came in only slightly weaker, and a report confirmed that corporate earnings had slipped in 2008.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) announced forecasts for Chinese economic growth in 2009 of 8.3%. Wang Tongsan, Director at CASS, said "Basically, the target of GDP growth of 8% is achievable, although China's economy is still facing downward pressure,”

Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs economists Helen Qiao and Yu Song said China GDP growth might be 8.3% in 2009 (higher than an earlier estimate of 6%). “Policy makers in China have been pushing the envelope on policy easing in only one direction -- for more and more,” they said. “In the next three quarters, we expect domestic demand growth to further strengthen, bolstered by loose financial conditions and continued policy stimulus.”

Other Investment Bank forecasts for 2009 GDP growth included: Barclays Capital 7.2% (previously estimated 6.7%); UBS 7.5% (previously estimated 6.5%); Royal Bank of Scotland 7% (previously estimated 5%); CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets 7% (previously estimated 5.5%); and Merrill Lynch 8%.

In March China's bad loans fell to 2.04% of total credits. “I’m being responsible when I say that we will continue to see declines in both the outstanding bad loans and the ratio of non-performing loans,” said the China Banking Regulatory Commission Chairman, Liu Mingkang. Chinese banks had 549.5 billion yuan (about US$80 billion) in non-performing loans as of March; down by 10.7 billion yuan from the beginning of 2009.

The People's Bank of China met with officials from the top 5 commercial banks to discuss the next steps in the country's credit management policy; "The central bank will not control the scale of credit extended by commercial banks, but we do hope that banks can lend loans more steadily and rationally in the coming three quarters," said Yi Gang, vice governor of the central bank. New loans in the first quarter totaled 4.58 trillion yuan ($671 billion).

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), is working with the Finance Ministry of China to launch an agency to restructure and consolidate SOEs. The Central Huijin-like fund is expected to have at least 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) of capital and to be directly led by SASAC, and will likely team up with Chinese private equity funds for investments it makes e.g. CITIC, CIC etc.

China's unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in Q1 2009 (versus the 2008 year-end figure of 4.2%) according to Yin Chengji of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

see the rest here: http://www.chinaeconomicscan.com/weekreview24april09econ.html[/quote]

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