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Zoellick: What China can do best is to maintain growth

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-16 06:35

The best way China can help support the world economy at this time is through the efforts China is making to strengthen its own economy, visiting World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick said in Beijing on Monday.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick looks on during his visit to the earthquake-hit Beichuan County, Sichuan province December 14, 2008. [Agencies]

"What China can do best is to maintain its growth," Zoellick told reporters after a day's talk with Chinese key economic officials, adding that "it will not be easy given the downturn China is already experiencing in international trade".

Exports of the world's fourth largest economy last month fell 2.2 percent year-on-year to $115 billion, the first monthly decline since June 2001, according to figures from China's General Administration of Customs.

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The Chinese government has taken an array of fiscal and monetary policies to buoy the economy to weather the effects of the financial turmoil, including investment, technology innovation and social security programs, he said.

China has cut its lending rate four times since mid-September and announced a massive 4 trillion yuan ($584 billion) stimulus package.

The fund will be spent over the next two years to finance programs in 10 major areas, such as low-income housing, rural infrastructure, water, electricity, transportation, the environment, technological innovation and rebuilding from several disasters. Some of the money had already been announced as investment before the package was announced.

He praised the Chinese government for infrastructure building, and for laying great importance on programs that were closely linked to people's social welfare.

The package unveiled last month included 280 billion yuan in spending for low-income housing projects, 370 billion yuan for improving people's living standards and infrastructure in rural areas and 40 billion yuan for health and education programs.

When asked about the growth prospects of 2009, Zoellick described the coming year as "a very difficult" one, especially the first half of 2009, with lots of uncertainties.

Zoellick was on a four-day visit in China at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Finance. He paid a visit to the May 12 quake hardest-hit southwestern Sichuan Province on Sunday.