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Economist: China not to see quick recovery

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-22 12:36

China's economy is unlikely to see a steady recovery in the short term but will rather experience ups and downs along a bottom due in part to worsening export demand, a government economist said on Wednesday.

Improvements in industrial output, investment and credit expansion in March have helped fuel hopes that the world's third-largest economy could be on its way to an early recovery, after plumbing the weakest quarterly pace on record in the first three months, at 6.1 percent.

But Fan Jianping, chief economist with the State Information Center, a leading government think-tank, said in a report published in the China Securities Journal that it was not advisable to jump to such a conclusion.

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"The possibility for China to have a steady and quick recovery is not big due to the current external economic situation and structural problems with the domestic economy," Fan wrote.

"The impact of the global financial crisis is spreading and exerting an even deeper effect on China," he said.

Fan added that China still suffered from excess capacity in some industries, meaning that some obsolete production capacity should start to be phased out starting from this quarter, a process he said could take several years.

The process would be painful, but necessary, he said.

"Only by expanding domestic demand on the one hand and shutting down obsolete capacity on the other hand can we gradually bring about a better balance between supply and demand," he said.