April 27, 2008	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 20, 1429

SHANGHAI, April 26: China will find it difficult to meet its target of limiting consumer price inflation to about 4.8 per cent this year, a senior official at the National Bureau of Statistics was quoted as saying.

The 4.8 per cent figure is an aspiration, and the figures for the first quarter suggest this target will be very hard to hit, Peng Zhilong, director general of the department of national accounts, was quoted by Saturday’s official Shanghai Securities News as telling an economic seminar.

They were excessive demand caused by rapid economic growth; flows of money into China for trade, investment and speculation; rising wages; the central bank’s interest rate hikes, which had raised companies’ costs; and rising asset prices.

Peng was also quoted as saying China’s macroeconomic tightening policies and slower growth in the global economy made a slowdown in the Chinese economy this year inevitable.

But he said it was premature to talk about the possibility of China facing stagflation, since the country would be able to maintain growth of about 9 per cent this year and inflation remained within a controllable range.—Reuters