No Hard Landing For China's Economy, Says Premier

By Samantha Tan Chiew Ting BEIJING, March 16 (Bernama) -- China is confident of achieving its economic growth targets despite sluggish global environment and would not suffer a hard landing, said Prime Minister Li Keqiang. "We feel so confident because we believe that as long as we stay on course on the reform path and opening up, our economy will not suffer a hard landing," he said. Li was speaking at a press conference at the close of the 4th Session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) here Wednesday. At the opening of NPC on March 5, China forecast gross domestic product growth of between 6.5 per cent and seven per cent for this year and an annual growth of 6.5 per cent or above from now until 2020 under the 13th Five-Year Plan. He said China was confident of its growth as the country still has enormous potentials in large markets and there were also immense activities among its people. "China's reforms will further stimulate market vitality and public creativity, and with wisdom and hard work of our people, we would be able to withstand downward pressure," Li said. However, Li said, China would be pressing ahead with cutting overcapacity, and at the same time, ensure that there would be no massive job losses. He said the government would be assigning new jobs for those laid-off and also for those still having difficulties in finding employment. Li said the central government funding could be top-up in addition to the US$15.34 billion (100 billion yuan) fund announced in February, to help relocating workers who lost their jobs. --BERNAMA