World media focus on China government work report

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- World media have paid close attention to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's government work report to the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), focusing on China's fiscal and monetary policies in particular.

The Associated Press said Wen promised strong growth this year and said the government would combat inflation and risks to banks to keep the rebound in the world's third-largest economy on track.

Despite external pressure, Wen said China would keep its currency "basically stable," the AP report said.

Reuters said Wen stressed that China would maintain an appropriately easy monetary stance and and would seek to keep the currency basically steady at a reasonable and balanced level.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) said China on Friday predicted another year of rapid expansion in 2010.

In his annual address to open parliament, Premier Wen also pledged to tame inflation and curb rampant bank lending to forestall a risky bubble in the economy, the report said.

German national news agency DPA quoted Wen as saying that: "This is a crucial year for continuing to deal with the global financial crisis, maintaining steady and rapid economic development, and accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development."

The Wall Street Journal's website said Wen reiterated a target for gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 8 percent in 2010 from a year earlier, and promised again the government would adopt measures to support the economy.

The U.S. paper's online report said the full airing on economic issues could lead the agenda of the National People's Congress and Wen's report was aiming to clarify the further development of China, a major economy with the fastest growth.

Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao said Wen in his report promised to maintain an active fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy. In 2010, China would keep the exchange rate of its currency basically stable at an appropriate and balanced level, while further improving the mechanism for setting the exchange rate.

Overseas media also followed topics such as transforming the pattern of economic development and narrowing the urban-rural gap.

The Latin America Information Agency said in a report that China had made use of unique policies of maintaining economic growth to stay above the aftermath of the international financial crisis and had laid the foundation for this year's development. It was embracing the future with the successful experience it accumulated while handling the crisis.

Japan's Tokyo Shimbun said that although China registered a growth rate of 8.7 percent in 2009, its investment-oriented economic growth pattern made it hard to guarantee stable and sustained development.

China was in search of transformation to a mode led by domestic demand, the newspaper said, adding the NPC would discuss pushing forward the process of urbanization, narrowing income gaps and reforming the industrial structure in order to stimulate consumption.

Japan's Nippon Sankei Shimbun said the revision of an election act to give equal suffrage to citizens and farmers had come under the spotlight.

If the revision was passed, representatives would be proportionately elected on the basis of the scale of population in cities and countryside, the report said.