China's president predicts 9 per cent growth

BEIJING - Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Sunday economic growth could exceed nine per cent this year.

"Growth in gross domestic product is expected to be over nine per cent this year," he said in Macau where he is attending celebrations to mark the fifth anniversary of the handover of Macau to China.

China has set an 8 per cent growth target for 2005 and aims to peg inflation at around 4 per cent, illustrating its eagerness to steer the economy to a soft landing, government sources and analysts said on Wednesday.

It is also targeting an urban jobless rate of 4.6 per cent in 2005, slightly higher than this year's expected jobless rate, the Economic Daily newspaper said on Saturday, citing the country's labour minister.

China aimed to find work for 5 million laid-off workers and 9 million new job seekers next year, it quoted Zheng Silin, minister of labour and social security, as saying on Friday.

China's official unemployment figure only covers registered urban jobless, and analysts say the true number of people without work could be more than twice the government estimate.

Zheng said China's registered urban unemployment rate was likely to come in at 4.3 per cent by the end of 2004, well below the original target of 4.7 per cent set at the start of the year, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Ministry statistics showed China had 8.21 million urban jobless, or a rate of 4.2 per cent, by the end of September, it said.

The China Daily newspaper on Wednesday credited China's robust economic growth for the positive job figures, although it put the urban jobless rate slightly higher -- at 4.4 per cent, 0.3 percentage point below the target for 2004. China has set an 8 per cent economic growth target for 2005.

- REUTERS