|
Economy sees signs of cooling down
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-05-08 00:22 Demand pressures for major commodities in China
will ease during the second quarter of this year as supplies grow, a report by
the Ministry of Commerce has indicated.
Domestic output and imports of steel will increase rapidly by the end of the
second quarter.
And, fertilizers will see a steady growth in production and imports but a
dramatic drop in exports, and are expected to be enough to meet the needs of
agriculture, the ministry was quoted as saying by Xinhua News Agency.
The country will manage to balance oil supply and demand through expanding
oil exploitation, growing imports and increased output of oil products, the
report said.
According to the report, cotton and edible oil imports will continue rising
and grain reserves will fall at first but will be held steady during the second
quarter.
The output of coal will continue to increase, and falling exports will help
alleviate growing domestic demand.
Among the 600 categories of commodities the Ministry monitored, 138, or 23
per cent, have reached a balance between supply and demand, 8.5 percentage
points higher than at the same time last year, the report said.
The supply of 462 categories of commodities exceeds demand, accounting for 77
per cent of the total, 8.5 percentage points lower than at the same time a year
earlier.
While their is fear that the economy is overheating, signs of relief are
showing up as investment in some overheated industries such as real estate has
slowed down, according to the report.
But the shortage of electricity will become more intense as the summer draws
nearer, the report said.
This casts a shadow on the country's already difficult situation in power
supply and demand.
The problems of haphazard investment and low-level expansion in some
industries have been blamed on excessive energy consumption and environmental
pollution.
"Overheated investment in some industries such as steel, aluminium and cement
are the key forces behind energy shortages,'' Chen Tonghai, president of
Sinopec, said at the Boao Forum for Asia late last month.
State statistics show that about 500,000 to 700,000 tons of additional fuel
products have to be used per month to ease the tension.
The country is reportedly facing the worst energy shortage in more than a
decade. Industrial regions in coastal areas were the first to face shortages,
which have now spread to 21 provinces, covering two-thirds of China.
The power shortage was also listed by the Ministry of Commerce as one of the
major problems in China's market development.
In its report released on Tuesday, the ministry pointed out that the problems
in power shortage, transportation services and raw material supply were not
fundamentally solved in the first quarter of this year.
The other problems are slower growth in consumption than in investment, the
expanding gap between consumption in urban and rural areas, the unsatisfactory
quality of some commodities and inflationary pressures.
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top China
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
