January 06, 2008	Sunday	Zilhaj 26, 1428

BEIJING, Jan 5: China’s per capita GDP will reach $ 3,000 by 2010, a decade ahead of the schedule set by the 2002 Communist Party National Congress, a government think-tank expert said.

An expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Lu Xueyi said the figure would reach $6,000 in 2020 if it maintained the current growth rate. It was also aided by the Chinese currency’s continued appreciation against the US dollar.

The country’s per capita GDP had grown by about $200 annually in the last two years to $2,200 in 2007, he estimated.

China had been in the fast lane in recent years as the nation took two years to raise its per capita GDP to $1,000 from $800 in 2000. It took another four years to reach $2,000.

“The day (of $3,000 per capita GDP) will come sooner than expected, as the current economic growth is faster than the annual average of 7.2 per cent necessary for the realisation of this goal,” an Asian Development Bank economist, Zhuang Jian said.

—APP